The world of Internet marketing is ever-changing, and the recent Heartbleed issue that compromised website security worldwide could prompt big shifts in the industry. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Google is considering including the security of your website as part of its search engine optimization (SEO) equation.  

We believe if Google utilizes website security as part of its search algorithm, this will be a positive change for consumers and business owners alike.
  • First, a disclaimer about REACH Marketing’s attitude towards this imminent change to SEO. We launched our rebranding and website on April 24, 2014. Therefore, our new website is not facing the same challenges that many of our customers and other businesses with long-established websites face when considering major security changes.
  • Second, this is still speculation. There have been several speculations about Google SEO changes in the past that haven’t come to fruition. We’ve provided painstakingly technical evidence from marketers around the world that lead us to believe this may happen.
  • Thirdly, regardless of whether this speculative change to Google SEO happens, securing your website increases trust between your business and your customers….and that is never a bad idea.

We’ll be practicing what we preach next week setting up reachmaine.com as an “always on” ssl secure website. We’ll share with you our experience and the pros and cons of converting your website to always-on SSL secure.

Some of the background information for this post:

Please proceed with caution if you decide to visit one of these links. This information is very technical and is prone to cause eye fatigue and headaches.

Google Weighs Boosting Encrypted Sites in Its Search Algorithm – Digits WSJ

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A powerful voice at Google wants websites to be more secure. In a move that experts say could make it harder to spy on Web users, Google is considering giving a boost in its search-engine results to websites that use encryption, the engineer in charge of fighting spam in search results hinted at a recent conference. The executive, Matt Cutts, is well known in the search world as the liaison between Google’s search team and website designers who track every tweak to its search algorithms. Via blogs.wsj.com

Moving your website to https / SSL

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In January I wrote about our plans in moving Yoast.com to SSL. We’ve since done that, with great results from an SEO perspective: we had no negative effect on traffic, whatsoever. Two weeks ago, we also moved our tool Quix to https. There are quite a few things we learned in the process of moving these two sites to SSL that we thought would be worth sharing with all of you. Also, some things happened in the last few weeks that make SSL a hot topic, so we’ll discuss those first. tips & tricks Yoast

Google Considers Making SSL A Ranking Signal

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About a month ago, Google’s head of webspam Matt Cutts said at the Search Marketing Expo that he’d like to see Google make SSL site encryption a signal in Google’s ranking algorithm. It doesn’t look like anything new has really happened with this yet, but the Wall Street Journal has a new report out reaffirming Cutts’ desire for such a signal: Via webpronews.com

Understanding Always On SSL and SEO

 

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‘I don’t know of any reason why you[r website] wouldn’t be able to rank with just HTTPS,’ says Matt Cutts of Google. Always On SSL is a mechanism for ensuring that every interaction with every page of your website is encrypted from the moment a visitor arrives to the moment they leave. This goes beyond using SSL on transaction pages, like sign in and payment portals. Via symantec.com