seo

Do SSL Certificates Affect Search Rankings

By James Tredwell on December 22, 2020

If you are running your own website, then you definitely hear about the SSL. In the case of online marketing, an SSL certificate holds great importance. According to the experts, it is also useful in improving website ranking. In other words, some people consider HTTPS as a ranking signal. The majority of individuals are paying attention to the trends only and start adding an SSL certificate to the website. Some people really want to know; it is helpful in boosting search ranking or a myth. 

When it comes to the website ranking, then search engine optimization practices become important. Ranking a website on the search engine result pages is highly dependent on the quality of backlinks. On the other hand, it is also true that Google considers more than 200 search engine ranking factors. Sometimes, it becomes impossible to fulfill all factors appropriately. In these conditions, the SSL can work as a great source by which you can bring some changes in the search ranking. For more clarity and insights, you should keep reading the article. 

SSL Certificate – What Is It?

Before focusing on the deep details related to the SSL certificate, we have to understand what it actually is and how it works. 

SSL certificate is a kind of digital identity with some unique characteristics. It can be easily installed on any web server. The most important thing is all SSL certificates are issued with a specific unique ID. It means the certificate that issues for your website will not be issued to another. 

To get such a certificate, you should choose a trusted source only. Along with it, the SSL certificate also helps the user’s website by protecting it from the outsider’s attack. It can be useful in availing of some specific benefits.

In case you want to understand how to differentiate the domains with SSL and without SSL, you should focus on their beginning. In the beginning, you can see HTTP is changed to HTTPS. HTTPS represents the protected domains only. 

How Does SSL Affect Search Engine Ranking?

After getting some basic knowledge about SSL, you can understand how does it work. Now the question appears on, is it beneficial in search engine ranking, and what are the benefits of having an SSL certified website? With the help of the following points, you can easily get answers to both of your questions. 

Search Engine Preferences 

As we know, to get the website ranked quickly, all individuals have to keep working on the search engine optimization practices. It is the only way by which the website owners can represent their website as a credible source in front of the search engine. To make sure it, you have to take care of several elements, such as – 

  • User-friendly website 
  • SEO-friendly website 
  • Well SEO-optimized 
  • Proper addition of keywords 
  • Quality backlinks 
  • Impressive link building strategy 

These are some major factors by which you can impress the search engine bots and get ranked. Here, we should not forget that there are more than 200 search ranking factors in previous paragraphs. If we talk about the SSL, then it is also a dominating one. 

The websites with SSL start displaying with a different URL structure that begins with HTTPS instead of HTTP. According to the search engine guidelines and algorithm functionings, the HTTPS domains get preference over HTTP domains when it comes to ranking. 

This particular factor is also proved in multiple studies and researches. Many search engine optimization experts also admitted that it is compulsory to have an SSL certificate if you want to rank on the search engine result pages quickly. 

Provide A Better User Experience 

Everyone needs to be focused on the website’s user experience to impress the users. In case you do not get success in impressive the users, they start leaving the website after a few seconds only. It clearly increases the overall bounce rate of the website. Increased trends in the bounce rate are not good for the website’s ranking. It starts leading to a negative impact on the search engine ranking by giving wrong signals. 

In these conditions, the search engine bots understand that the users are leaving your website because they do not find something relevant or useful. It means your website is useless. As a result, it becomes bad, and the users start lacking in achieving business goals. Here, all website owners need to make sure they are keeping the website’s user experience always high by which they can encourage the users to spend more time as much as possible. 

All business owners want to know how they can increase the website’s user experience and keep it up to the mark. There are multiple things that can help you earn the trust of visitors and motivate them to stay on your website for a long period. As we mentioned, trust is the most important factor. 

You can earn the users’ trust by presenting your platform as a secured and trusted one. It can be possible with the help of an SSL certificate only. It makes your domain secure and provides safety to the users while accessing your website as well. Consequently, you can see, users start spending more time on the website. 

It helps in decreasing the bounce rate effectively and leads to some positive results only. If you are running a website with a lower bounce rate, then you can detect its positive effects on the search engine ranking. It represents you are serving something useful on your website to help the users solve their problems. 

Keep Yourself Always Ahead 

The online marketplace is full of competition, and all website & business owners are trying to keep themselves ahead. No one wants to get beaten by the competitors and let them hold a higher position in the search engine ranking. To make it possible and achieve the ranking goals, the companies are putting lots of effort into holding the top-notch ranking position for a long time. 

The biggest issue in these conditions is how many ranking factors you are covering by following proper search engine optimization guidelines. Here, every single element plays a big role. Due to this, you cannot ignore the importance of an SSL certificate because it is also one of the 200 ranking factors. 

Some people don’t believe in getting an SSL certificate for the website and start working without it. While facing such a situation, these types of users may lack in fulfilling such a requirement. As a result, they lack in getting ranked on the search engine result pages. If you have the SSL certificate on your website, but your competitor does not, it becomes a positive point and an additional factor by which you can get ranked. 

Know More 

These are some key facts about the importance of an SSL certificate. It can help you figure out how you can connect the availability of SSL certificates on your website with the search engine ranking. Along with it, getting the SSL certificate is not any difficult task. You can easily get it by spending a small amount of money only. An SSL certificate is not something that needs lots of money to keep your website fully secure. You should get a certificate and convert your website domain into an HTTPS domain today. 

Types Of SSL Certificates

If you understand the importance of an SSL certificate, you should not delay and get it today and install it on your website quickly. Before proceeding with such a thing, you have to focus on the selection of the right SSL. Mainly there are five types of SSL certificates offered by the service providers. 

Single Domain SSL Certificate 

By choosing this particular certificate, you can easily protect one domain. In case you have multiple websites and domains, then choosing a single-domain SSL certificate for all is not a good decision. You should choose it in case of operating a single-domain only. 

Multi-Domain SSL Certificate

If you have multiple websites and are willing to protect them all, you should proceed with selecting a multi-domain SSL certificate. It can help you in covering more than one domain under a single certificate. As a result, you can save a good amount of money as well. In case you have any plan of buying more domains in the future, it can also work. 

Wildcard SSL Certificate

The specifications and functioning of a wildcard SSL certificate are between the single and multi-domain SSL certificate. It can help you cover multiple websites, but these websites cannot be related to different root domains. In simple words, we can say it can be useful in protecting a root domain and its subdomains. 

Organization SSL Certificate 

It is almost similar to the single-domain SSL certificate. The only difference that you can notice is, it requires your organizational details for confirmation. 

Extended 

With the help of an extended SSL certificate, you can leave the biggest impact. You have to confirm and verify the legal details while installing it on the website servers. 

All these things can help you in getting deep into the SSL certificates and their functionings. For more details and installation procedures, you can discuss facts with the experts. 

Ravi is CEO & founder of Webomaze Pty. Ltd. He believes in serving the industry with some unique solutions with a huge variety of services including web design & web development, SEO Services, ECommerce Development, and so on.

Contact Us for Free Consultation

Are You Planning to outsource Digital Tansformation services? Feel free for work-related inquiries, our experts will revert you ASAP,