Hi all,

 

First time poster, but have been lurking for a while!

 

Had someone ask me today what it would cost to switch a site we have built (which is a simple content only small business brochure WordPress site, no eCommerce or even customer login area etc.) from being all http to all https with valid ssl certificate.

 

Reason they were asking is being 'it now influence Google Rankings' as per the article below.

 

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2359219/google-to-reward-https-sites-with-higher-search-rankings

 

I would of course consider https if we were handling customers data (eCommerce or otherwise), but on a simple brochure type website surely this isn't worth it, given the costs involved initially/annually and the negative impact on load times. Is it just me that thinks this sounds a bit crazy?

 

Thanks, s

Very credible, from Google http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html

I'm glad to hear it isn't just me that thinks this is crazy!!

 

As Google say themselves, it isn't a huge deal at present but they suggest it could be.

 

"For now it's only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content"

 

Something just doesn't feel right about building a simple brochure website to load entirely on https.

Another new poster thats been lurking! just come back to the forum when I spotted this on the bbc website!

 

Its nice to see im not alone in thinking it's a ridiculous move, turning light weight brochure sites into a clunky ssl website is not favourable for me!

Is there somewhere on the forum this could go to make it more prominent? There must be a lot of people on here who might have an opinion on this, and who may be affected by this at some point. Would love to hear more opinions.

It could have a fair impact on how simple websites have to be built.

I'm no SEO expert but as I understand it the over-riding mantra from Google is "user-experience" and an SSL for a brochure site adds nothing to the user experience. I wouldn't bother, indeed I'd not be surprised to find using https inappropriately will become a negative as you're clearly more worried about Google than your user.