Last August 6, 2014, Google announced that they started using HTTPS as one of the ranking signals after making tests and getting positive results. You can read it at HTTPS as a ranking signal at Webmaster Central Blog.
It is a fact that using HTTPS/SSL encryption can really add more security to your site. But do you really need it?
This is a question most small-to medium-sized business (SMB) owners would like to know as this would be an added cost, which is quite substantial.
Here are some questions to take into consideration:
Do you have an e-commerce site?
Do you offer membership signups where users would need to login?
Have you been hacked in the past or at risk to hacking?
If you answer yes to any of those, then you might as well find the budget for it.
To proceed with the setting up of your HTTPS/SSL encryption, it might be wise to check out the following links:
- Securing your site with HTTPS
- Making sure Google can index and serve your content under your new URLs
If you answer no to all of the questions above and you are more concerned that it is taken as a ranking signal by Google, then it might be great to read the blogpost at mediative.com.
2022 July 22
Does it affect my SEO score negatively if my page is linking to an external insecure website (that is linking to an HTTP and not HTTPS)?
This question is limited to understanding if there was a negative impact on SEO from linking to insecure webpages that only use HTTP.
Below is the answer of John Mueller:
…first off, we don’t have a notion of an SEO score.
So you don’t really have to worry about kind of an SEO score.
But regardless, I kind of understand the question is like, is it bad if I link to an HTTP page instead of an HTTPS page.
And from our point of view, it’s perfectly fine.
If these pages are on HTTP, then that’s what you would link to.
That’s kind of what users would expect to find.
There’s nothing against linking to sites like that.
There is no kind of downside for your website to kind of like avoid linking to HTTP pages because they’re kind of old or crusty and not as cool as on HTTPS.
I would not worry about that.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/will-linking-to-http-pages-impact-seo/457331/
Please leave me feedback below if you are moving or not to HTTPS and kindly leave a reason. We would really appreciate it.