Use SSL to boost your Google Page Rank

Yep, that’s right! Google stated back in 2014 that adding an SSL 2048 bit certificate on your website will provide you a boost in your page rank. By making these changes, Google has provided a definite way to increase your search rankings, and wants to “encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.” While changing to SSL may be a minor boost now, it could grow into a major contributor down the road.

Will an SSL affect my existing SEO ranking?

Not at all, and Google has been telling us switching is safe for years. What will affect your SEO is if you do not take the proper steps to ensure your website traffic does not suffer. Google has suggested the following things:

  • Use 2048-bit key certificates.
  • Figure out which certificate you need: single, multi-domain, or wildcard certificate.
  • Use relative URLs for resources that reside on the same secure domain.
  • Use protocol relative URLs for all other domains.
  • Move your website address
  • Do not block your HTTPS site from crawling using your robots.txt file.
  • Avoid the noindex robots meta tag and allow indexing of your pages where possible.

How can you ensure all pages are redirected to the HTTPS site?

Option 1: The easy way

Easy! Our Website Access Manager app has this built in for you and can be completed in a few simple steps.

Step 1: Open your WAM project file and click the Server Config button on the toolbar.

Website Access Manager main toolbar

Step 2: Under the Advanced Configuration section check the Force SSL connections option and click OK.

Website Access Manager Server Config window

Step 3: Click the Upload to Server button on the toolbar, and you are all set!

Website Access Manager main toolbar
Option 2: Adding the code yourself.

Add the code below to your .htaccess file, and it will automatically redirect any traffic destined for HTTP to HTTPS: 

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off

RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

If you have not made the switch yet, you should consider it. Why not take advantage of the ranking boost? CoffeeCup has made the transition to an HTTPS website for all our content, and we recommend you do as well.