Does HTTPS (vs. HTTP) on Regular Pages Benefit the Site Owner

Forum Moderators: phranque

Message Too Old, No Replies

Does HTTPS (vs. HTTP) on Regular Pages Benefit the Site Owner

Non-form, regular-page HTTPS benefits to the site owner

webeditor coutre

1:47 pm on Aug 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

Now that whole sites are converting to HTTPS, besides forms and transaction pages, what is the benefit to the site owner of switching to HTTPS on regular website pages?

For example, I saw two possible advantages in another thread:

"Browser support for HTTP/2 protocol is only for HTTPS websites. This protocol greatly speeds up page loads. If your site is not secure, you will not benefit"
"Google has made statements that secure sites will gain advantage in mobile & desktop SERP"

Is it true that it will greatly speed up page downloads, and improve Search Results?
Are there any other actual benefits to the site owner?

topr8

2:19 pm on Aug 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

>>Is it true that it will greatly speed up page downloads, and improve Search Results?

page speed - yes absolutely, but only if your server is using http/2

>>Are there any other actual benefits to the site owner?

yes as public perception slowly decides that 'secure' websites are much better to use they will be scared of visiting 'unsecure' websites.
[wether it is true or not is irrelevant, if public perception becomes generally that non-https sites are dangerous to use then if you are not https you wil lose traffic]

also if a user is on a 'secure' website and that website has a link to your 'unsecure' website, it is entirely possible (actually already happens with some browsers) that if the user clicks the link, a message will come up saying - "you are attempting to go from a secure to a non-secure page, are you sure you want to do that" ... what do you think a lot of users are going to do when confronted with that message.

quite honestly as you can now get free certificates there is no reason to not go https.

webeditor coutre

2:33 pm on Aug 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

That's great information. Thanks topr8.

Peter_S

9:06 pm on Aug 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

If I don't make mistake, an HTTPS connection also prevents most Man-in-the-Middle attacks (and if HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is set correctly). If HSTS is not implemented correctly, (and if I still don't make mistake), an MITM can intercept a connection and turn it into HTTP (without the "s"). Which is another reason why it's a good idea to show the "non secure" message on HTTP site, because it's possible it was an HTTPS connection intercepted by an MITM. So it's a benefit for both the visitor and the site owner in my opinion.

Another "upcoming" benefit, of switching to HTTPS, is when, in a couple of years, the QUIC protocol will be widely adopted. Lot of Google's sites are using it already. I've been experimenting (using Caddy Web Server), and it's really fast. However, even if the communication / transmission is faster, Caddy does not perform well enough compare to my nginx, and for my usage. So I'll need to wait for nginx to adopt QUIC...