Why You Should Go For HTTP to HTTPS Migration Now ?

A lot has already been written to educate business owners and SEOs about the benefits of switching to HTTPS. Despite the several benefits of HTTPS migration, numerous website owners haven't done this yet done. They may have their doubts about that should be addressed properly. To enable webmasters understand those very benefits of HTTP to HTTPS migration and how they could begin the process effortlessly, I am writing a very crisp and informative piece here. Hope it will help you.

Reasons Your Should Move To HTTPS :

Google itself states several reasons why its beneficial to switch to HTTPS. As per Google, the data being sent via HTTPS is secured with Transport Layer Security Protocol that provides three key layers of protection:

Encryption.

HTTPS encrypts the data exchanged to make transaction secure from eavesdroppers. The encryption ensures that while browsing, no one can intrude intrude into conversations, track activities across multiple pages or steal information.

Data Integrity.

Data integrity is another key advantage that HTTPS serves. Which means, data cannot be compromised during transfer and any alteration made to the data can be easily detected.

Authentication:

Authentication ensures that users are on the right website at a time. HTTPS authentication protects against man-in-the-middle attacks and builds user trust. Besides these benefits, the migration may add ranking boost as well. HTTPS switch also prevents websites from injecting ads into their hotspots.

HTTPS Doesn't Protect Your Website:

Despite the fact that HTTPS doesn't let your crucial information compromised during transit, it doesn't protect your website from various kinds of attacks. Even after migration, your website could face:

• Downgrade attacks
• SSL/TLS vulnerabilites
• Heatbleed, Poodle, Logjam, etc.
• Hacks of a website, server or network
• Software vulnerabilities
• Brute force attacks
• DDOS attacks

Process Of HTTP to HTTPS Migration:

Here is the order you should follow in order to switch your website to HTTPS.

1. Start with a test server
2. Crawl the current website
3. Read any documentation regarding your server or CDN for HTTPS
4. Get a security certificate and install on the server
5. Update references in content
6. Update references in templates
7. Update canonical tags
8. Update hreflang tags
9. Update any plugins/modules/add-ons
10. CMS-specific settings may need to be changed
11. Crawl the site
12. Make sure any external scripts that are called support HTTPS
13. Force HTTPS with redirects
14. Update old redirects currently in place
15. Crawl the old URLs
16. Update sitemaps
17. Update your robots.txt file
18. Enable HSTS
19. Enable OCSP stapling
20. Add HTTP/2 support
21. Add the HTTPS version of your site
22. Update your disavow file
23. Update your URL parameter settings
24. 24. Go live!

Problems That May Occur While Migration :

During the migration, following are the hurdles that could stall the process-
Error may occur when Google starts crawling the HTTP version of the websites
Content duplication issues, with both HTTPS and HTTP versions of the pages showing; and different versions of the page showing on HTTP and HTTPS.

Tarun Gupta

Tarun Gupta, CEO of Brainpulse Technologies, is a prolific author and digital marketing specialist. His insightful writings span SEO, content marketing, social media strategy, and email campaigns, offering invaluable expertise to businesses worldwide. Tarun’s contributions continue to shape the digital marketing landscape, guiding success in multiple niches.