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SSL matters more than ever in 2018

16 January 2018

Stuart

Recent research by Hubspot supports what we’ve been pestering you about for a while now. A staggering – or not so staggering depending on your viewpoint – 84% of users stated they’d ditch a website that doesn’t offer https. That’s nearly nine in ten visitors to your website, happily hitting the back button if they don’t like what they see security-wise.

While SSL is believed to be a minor SEO ranking signal in and of itself, the behaviour of website visitors bouncing from your own site and finding a happy place on a competitors site that does have SSL is undoubtedly a huge signal to search engines like Google. That means at this point, not only are you losing visitors that hit your page, you’ll also be sliding down the search rankings month by month. A somewhat non-virtuous circle of less traffic, higher bounce rate and less traffic, looping over and over.

Take into account all of this is coupled with continuing moves from Google to penalise non SSL websites in search. The future of non https sites is clear.

SSL remains free for hosted websites at 34SP.com and installation is often as simple as a few clicks. Here are the relevant KB articles for our hosting plans to get started with SSL:

How to Install a Lets Encrypt SSL Certificate on Professional Hosting
How to Install a Lets Encrypt SSL Certificate on WordPress Hosting
How to Install a Lets Encrypt SSL Certificate on Business Hosting
How to Install a Lets Encrypt SSL Certificate on Reseller Hosting


When we wrote about SSL in July, 1,500 websites had made the leap to SSL. We’ve recently passed 2,300 and growing quickly. If you’ve not yet made the move, ask our support team how you can.

A final reference you might want to keep to hand is the excellent SSL checker at SSL Labs.

This free tool provides a comprehensive analysis of any publicly accessible website and reports back on the SSL setup. If you’re making the transition to SSL, or simply want to ensure that your site is setup correctly, it can be invaluable and enlightening.

Stuart

Stuart

Hi! I am the the co-founder of 34SP.com and Business Development Director; I've been at this hosting lark for more than twenty two years, ulp.. I oversee multiple areas of our business to ensure 34SP.com products and services are meeting our customer's needs. You can get in touch over on LinkedIn or replying to any of most posts. In my spare time I am exceptionally interested in food and drink, I run several food website and am a multi-award winning, food and drink writer.