As of August 6th, 2014 Google has noted that the use of an SSL certificate on your website will have an impact on your search engine rankings. The blog post from Google notes that they really wish to see all websites use HTTPS for traffic for security reasons – calling it “HTTPS everywhere on the web”.
While they have noted that strong article content is king in search engine rankings, they have noted that the use of SSL certificates on your website will have an impact either way. As time goes on, this impact from SSL may become more substantial as unencrypted traffic may be frowned upon.
This change should not really have a large impact on web developers. SSL certificates can be purchased for a very low fee, sometimes even $10-15, which are valid for an entire year. In the grand scheme of things, this is equivalent or even less than a cost of a yearly domain renewal. In order to provide secured traffic to your customers, this is a small investment that every web developer should make.
In order to install an SSL certificate on your website, you may have to contact your hosting company to ensure that you have a dedicated IP to use. We have partnered with InclusiveHost in order to offer you a hosting package with a dedicated IP included. Simply use the coupon code “IP-PLEASE” to save 25% off their “Select” or “Inclusive” hosting packages!