As a business owner who plans to own a website, you should understand the differences between HTTP and HTTPS. You should also know why it’s beneficial for your SEO. In addition, you should be aware of any other challenges that may come with choosing one of these two protocols.
HTTP is short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol while HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. They are network protocols for data transfer. It’s safe to say that HTTPS is the upgraded version of the old HTTP.
And what does HTTP do?
It’s is a structure or standard for receiving or transferring information and data from web pages.
They are designed to provide information to web users regardless of any medium it takes. Because they are stateless, they use less data since they can’t retrieve or recover earlier information from previous session(s).
Having understood how they both work, let’s dive into their merit and demerit, their differences, and how they affect your website search ranking.
Search Optimisation and HTTPS
HTTP does not improve search ranking but HTTPS does. Imagine trying to shop online and your personal information is required such as your credit card details, and you find out that channel or website is not secured, nobody will buy from it.
It does not matter if your company operates an offline or online website, most times it requests user data. You get information from them which they expect you to protect, and if your business cannot guarantee that it will cost your business sales.
When you operate a website with HTTP, you just opened your backdoor to hackers that can withdraw information from your site anytime they want.
Think of it like anyone having the passcode to your card, yeah that’s the way it is, of course, you don’t want that. Browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox will notify their users that the channel is not secure or dangerous and this will greatly affect your SEO website ranking.
Website Security
HTTP does not need an SSL Certificate; HTTPS requires an SSL Certificate. Security Sockets Layer (SSL) is an additional security layer that HTTPS uses to transport and transfer information.
The SSL operates alongside the HTTPS in communicating information security via these three processes:
- Encryption- It encrypts all information that goes through it for security purposes.
- Authentication- With this, the web users are authenticated to communicate with the website.
- Data rectitude- Information that passes through it cannot be altered, changed, or corrupted.
Differences between HTTP and HTTPS
- HTTPS is used as an SEO benefit to your secured site which can greatly boost your SEO ranking.
- HTTP is less secure as data can be easily accessed by hackers: HTTPS is designed to prevent hackers from accessing sensitive information. As earlier discussed, operating on HTTP exposes your website users to the great risk of getting their information hacked.
- No encryption in HTTP: data is encrypted in HTTPS before sending. For security purposes, your messages are encrypted in HTTPS in order to block out 3rd parties from viewing them.
- HTTP sends data over port 80: HTTPS uses port 443. HTTPS transports information over TCP Port 443 alongside the SSL by default while the HTTP exercises port 80, so they use two separate communication systems.
With this wealth of information, you should already see why your website must run on HTTPS protocol only. If you need a fully secured and search-optimized website, contact the Ducehost web development team to get started.