An SEO’s Guide to Securing a Website

Whether it is the search engines, web marketers, or website owners, all of them nurture a common wish. And that is to ensure complete security for their web portals. Choosing the correct web browser happens to be one the best ways of securing your website. For years, HTTP or Hypertext Transfer Protocol served as a useful tool to secure sites. However, there has been a shift quite recently, with website owners choosing HTTPS over other options.

One aspect is quite clear. Popular search engines such as Google have taken security issues seriously. Perhaps that is the reason that the company is leaving no stone unturned to popularize HTTPS.

Let’s get down to understanding what Google is doing about the entire issue.

Google speak

There are no elements of surprises in the fact that Google is giving huge importance to HTTPs. They are campaigning for it everywhere; announcing the browser as an important ranking signal, as well as indexing secure pages over unsecured ones.

However, the result is not as expected. After all these significant efforts in popularizing HTTPS, the percentage of secured website is even less than 0.1%.

Now, this brings us to a crucial segment of the entire discussion. Why should website developers shift to HTTPS? What does it have in store for them?

Why choose HTTPS?

According to Google, there are numerous reasons for shifting to HTTPS. Data sent with the help of HTTPS comes with TLS or Transport Layer Security protocol, which happens to offer three unique protective layers. They are as follows:

1.      Encryption: Data encryption grants you the liberty of secured communication. While users browse a website, data encryption will make sure their conversations are unheard by third parties.

2.      Integrity: Data integrity ensures perfect data security against corruption. Any such activities will be detected right at the moment.

3.          Authentication: Data authentication makes sure you communicate with the website you wish to, and not anything else. As the result, you enjoy complete protection against man-in-middle attacks leading to unsurpassed satisfaction.

What does HTTPS do?

Although common perceptions state that HTTPS protects your website, it’s not the complete truth. As a website owner, you must know that there are numerous threats capable of attacking your website, even after shifting to HTTPS. Some of these threats include:

·         Downgrade attacks

·         TLS/SSL vulnerabilities

·         Website, network, or server hacks

·         Software vulnerabilities

·         Brute force attacks    

In spite of the possibilities of these attacks, shifting to HTTPS will prove to be a smart move. Follow the crucial steps and get started with your project.

1. ·         Begin with test servers
   
2. ·         Read documentations concerning your CDN for HTTPS
   
3. ·         Get security certificates for server installations
   
4. ·         Update your contents with references
   

These are some of the crucial steps worth performing, and the list continues. Follow every single step judiciously and be the owner of a secured website.

About Author:

Rajiv Rana is director of operation and Story Teller at EZ Rankings - SEO Company India. With experience of more than 13 years, He has mentored several leaders in the industry. He love writing about digital, latest technologies, venture bubbles and market trends.