Does an SSL Certificate Improve Your Google SEO Ranking?

Adekunle Oludele
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May 26, 2022

There are over 200 factors that Google considers when deciding how high to rank a website on the search engine results pages.

Google and other search engines use SSL encryption to ensure that the website you are visiting is legitimate and not malicious software trying to steal your information. If your website has an SSL certificate, it is more likely to be seen as trustworthy by Google, increasing its search engine ranking.

What does this mean? If you are getting an SSL certificate for your site, it might increase your rankings on Google and help boost your site's traffic – and generate more revenue for your business.

You have heard that an SSL certificate will improve your search engine rankings, but is this true? Many website owners want to be secure and worry about the additional cost of purchasing an SSL certificate, often calling it an expense that will not pay off eventually.

However, there are many benefits to consider, including how search engines view secure websites as more trustworthy than non-secure ones, leading to increased Google SEO ranking. This article will look at how SSL certificate works and whether they help improve Google's SEO ranking.

What is a multi-domain SSL certificate?

A multi domain certificate is a digital certificate that provides encryption for multiple domains from a single hostname. Rather than buying separate certificates for each of your domains and subdomains, you can purchase one multi-domain/unified communications (UCC) certificate to connect all of them at once securely.

Multi domain certificates are cheaper than their single domain counterparts because they share a standard set of SANs or CN entries, making them more cost-effective for server load and management. As such, it is particularly useful for managing multiple HTTPS websites with a wide range of domain names.

Benefits of using a multi domain SSL certificate

Various kinds of certificates (single-domain, multi-domain, and wildcard) offer advantages and drawbacks. This segment will go over the advantages of using multi-domain SSL.

All domains and subdomains are secured with just one certificate

The convenience and simplicity of certificate management ease the IT staff to manage multiple individual certificates on different websites, especially when they are utilized in conjunction using a certificate management system. Furthermore, multi-domain certificates can save you many costs and install challenges.

One-time verification process

Additionally, it is a one-time verification required. In contrast to single-domain SSL/TLS certificates, which require each domain to have its identity verification and multi-domain SSL/TLS certificates require identity verification for all domains.

Remains dependable for the whole website

For companies, no customer would want to browse a site that is not secure due to the risk to which they will be exposed. Let us suppose that the eCommerce site you have is secured with SSL/TLS certificates for only one domain.

The payment page (payment.ecommerce.com) is not secured, therefore decreasing the integrity of the entire business, and exposing the client to hacking and data breaches. Using a multi domain SSL certificate secures all websites, and your company and your customers will be secured and will ensure the trustworthiness of your site. Multi domain SSL/TLS certificates are accepted by more than 99 percent of browsers.

Three levels of confirmation

Multi domain certificates are also available with three levels of verification. Domain Validation (DV) informs users that the site has been verified through a certificate authority, organizational validation (OV) that confirms the legitimacy and authenticity of the business, and the extended validation (EV), the highest level of certificate validation that authenticates the legal entity that owns the business. It creates confidence among the users of secure Domains as well as subdomains.

Does the SSL certificate influence Google's SEO ranking?

There are a lot of things about how SSL certificates can improve your rankings in search engines. Unfortunately, there's little hard evidence to back that up. An SSL certificate will undoubtedly help with user trust. Since users are becoming increasingly aware of security when browsing the web, it is safe to say that doing all you can to secure your site will not hurt your SEO rankings.

To recap, Google published in its blog that in August 2014, HTTPS had been considered for SEO criteria. Your site will not rank high in search results without a valid SSL certificate.

In 2017, Google started displaying security warnings on sites running on HTTP that personal request information.

Since search engine rankings have so many varied factors, it is not easy to know the precise effect an SSL certificate will have on a website's ranking. However, to find the truth, Backlinko's Brian Dean partnered with SEMrush, Ahrefs, MarketMuse, and SimilarWeb to aggregate the needed data and determined that, in most cases, websites with HTTPS in the title tag or description were seen by Google as slightly more trusted.

Despite being uncertain about the exact effect that SSL has on a site's search engine ranking, it is indisputable that it affects its brand image and reputation. To illustrate, consumers tend to see the lack of an SSL certificate on a site as a highly negative sign and proceed to rate it as dangerous.

Hosting Tribunal states that 85% of online shoppers avoid websites without the 'HTTPS' in their URLs. It is caused by 1 in 10 URLs being malicious (Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report 2019). Because of this, more users no longer trust websites using HTTP.

The best practice is to create your website with an SSL certificate. Still, if you have not followed this recommendation, you will have to decide whether not having a secured site is worse than switching from HTTP to HTTPS for your company. The certificate will be particularly important to your business if you meet one of the following criteria:

Your website collects credit card details, email addresses, passport numbers, etc.
Your website requires you to proceed to online payments.
Your website has a restricted logged-in area.

You got it, HTTP and HTTPS In SEO matter whenever personal information is involved

Which SSL certificate should I choose?

There is no such thing as a best certificate since each site needs to be analyzed individually. That said, it is easy to get lost in all of your options, so we have provided a few distinct categories to help make things a little easier. The four main types of certificates are multi domain certificates, domain validation (DV), organization validation (OV), and extended validation (EV). Here is how they differ:

Domain Validation - This certificate for entry-level use is perfect for small-scale companies. It is the minimum level of security necessary for transactions with customers. The certificate can be issued in minutes.
Organization Validation - Professional certificate with an extensive background check to ensure visibility, elevated levels of trust, and secure encryption. Certificate can be issued within a day.
Extended Validation – It provides the highest level of authentication as well as encryption. It is recommended for websites with high visibility that are vulnerable to phishing attacks. The green address of your website is the activated bar. The certificate is issued within one day.
Multi Domain Certificate - The multi-domain option is perfect for businesses that want to protect multiple domain names without managing multiple certificates. Unlike wildcard certificates, multi-domain certificates allow for an array of valid external domains even if they are not related to each other.

Benefits of SSL certificates for search engine optimization (SEO)

Having an SSL certificate can boost your site's search engine rankings, but more importantly, it means your website is protected from certain types of security breaches. However, if you want to use it as a ranking signal, you will need to take a few additional steps.

This helps Google and other search engines better understand what type of content they should be indexing for your website.

So, does having an SSL certificate improve your Google SEO ranking? The short answer is yes. A lot depends on how you set up your server and what kind of traffic you are getting. Let us look at how SSL certificates can benefit you with the search engine's ranking.

SEO Boost

Google, the most frequently used web search engine, has proclaimed an SSL certificate as an essential standard to improve the ranking of websites. If you have the SSL certificate, you might not be high on the list; however, you will be able to improve your SEO.

A 2014 survey found that minor percentage of websites have an SSL certificate. We can certainly anticipate that the number will rise in the near future. This rising amount will require you to update your website using an SSL certificate and other SEO strategies to keep ahead of your competition.

A secure platform increases the trust of users

Security is the requirement of the moment. Many people avoid unsecured websites. When the green padlock on your address bar is visible, users will feel more secure when making conversions.

With an SSL certificate, more visitors will come to your site, and consequently, the number of visitors to your site will rise for you. As more visitors come to your site, so will your website's search engine rank.

Conversion rate and traffic increase

Secure sites do not receive an alert message that says that the website is not secure. SSL certificates guarantee that a secure browser-server connection is established, and the number of potential customers grows.

It boosts traffic to your site. People are comfortable putting the details of their credit cards and other data on your database, leading to more conversion rates. It can boost your website's search engine rankings.

The decision-maker for the same two ranked websites

The majority of search results that Google displays include at least one site protected with HTTPS. Security is the main requirement of the time, and both users and search engines favor secure connections.

If two websites satisfy all the criteria for ranking, then the one with an SSL certificate is more preferred. It might not be any distinction, but you will become more prominent.

Conclusion

HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, is a new protocol and encryption standard for HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), used to connect users and servers on the Internet. HTTPS encrypts all data transferred between servers, including passwords and user data. It provides security for users, meaning that snoopers cannot see what is being transferred between computers.

For example, if you are online banking from a public Wi-Fi network at a café or hotel, your information will be safe from prying eyes because it is encrypted.

It will not boost your website to the top of page 1 in Google, but not having one could certainly stunt how high your website ranks. For those of you in the habit of asking us this repeatedly, yes, SSL certificates are essential.