A website’s security, continued success and even its very existence is of fundamental importance for a site owner. What happens when you need to restore a site due to damage that can be caused by any number of factors, but then discover the data you thought was being backed-up and stored safely doesn’t actually exist? Sometimes the best case scenario can be only having a woefully out of date site that does not contain your most recent changes, data and information. The worst case scenario is that you encounter the ultimate site restore horror story and discover you do not have any backups at all!

That won’t happen to you though right? Everyone probably thinks this as they have taken steps to prevent such a scenario and

That won’t happen to you though right? Everyone probably thinks this as they have taken steps to prevent such a scenario and protect them from any potential misfortune. We’ve all heard a story of someone who installed something as simple as a WordPress update, which then crashed the site and took any chance of a restore with it. Often these scenarios can cost tens of thousand of dollars in lost business, valuable time and a loss of reputation while site owners attempt to rebuild a shattered site.

As was seen in a recent article, the hosting service A2 endured major issues related to a security breach that resulted in a shut-down of all Windows services. A malware attack resulted in A2 coming to the decision that the only way to recover the corrupted data it hosted was to do a full restore from the site backups. In theory, this should have caused very few problems as full and incremental backups should be taken regularly to ensure the most recent version of the website is always available for a restore.

Unfortunately it seems that in many cases, A2 were only able to restore from old versions of customer sites, which were very different from the latest and most recent versions their customers were anticipating.

While losing information on your site/business from just a few days or even a week ago might be bad enough, some A2 customers were faced with the prospect of having a restored site that was several months out of date. It is easy to imagine the embarrassment and issues this caused businesses that rely solely on their site to make sales. A loss of reputation and an outdated site would have been a best case scenario for many though, as some were even faced with the loss of their entire site due to the lack of security and updates in place.

This isn’t an isolated case limited to A2 however. While in a previous job, Marc Lacroix (a member of our team) experienced a situation where a client had a website with an older version of PHP hosted on an old server. The client was encouraged to contact their hosting company to find out if they could upgrade to PHP 7, to which the hosting company obliged and transferred the site to a new server, with the latest version of PHP.

When checking the website afterwards, it was noticed the content were no just old and out of date, but also had parts missing. It was discovered that the latest update for the site was dated from 2 months earlier, with no sign of all the changes that had been made since then. It remains a mystery why the hosting company used a 2 month old backup instead of migrating the live site directly. Thankfully the site owner had made a fresh backup with UpdraftPlus, which was quickly uploaded and restored. Problem solved!

While many customers depend on their hosting services to make regular backups and deal with security, the examples above clearly show that there is a massive need to take control of your own backups after investing so much time and money in your website.

That is why (according to the good people at WPbuffs.com, UpdraftPlus is the best WordPress backup plugin software available and is used by companies and individuals all over the world. Should the very worst happen and your site gets completely wiped due to a hack or malware, you can rest easy knowing that you can fully restore your site simply and easily with UpdraftPlus.

Download UpdraftPlus today

The post How restoring a WordPress website can be more difficult than you think appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

If you’ve ever done any kind of search on how to improve your SEO and website rankings then you have probably stumbled upon the “HTTP vs HTTPS” argument. Digital marketers and website owners often want to know if switching to HTTPS will help their website’s SEO.

Worry not, because we are going to tell you everything you need to know about HTTPS, its role in SEO and how it affects your overall search engine rankings.

Let’s get started

First things first, what does HTTPS actually stand for?

HTTPS = Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

HTTPS sites work by including an SSL 2048-bit key that protects users’ connection to the site through encryption and authentication. When an SSL certificate is installed on a website’s server, it activates a padlock (visible in the address bar) which allows secure connections between a website and a browser.

If your website doesn’t have HTTPS then a user’s connection is not secure and their information is constantly at risk of being leaked.

A secure website protects a user’s information by securing it in three different layers.

• Encryption: Helps keep the user’s activity hidden so it can not be tracked.
• Data Integrity: Keeps the files from being corrupted or manipulated during transfers.
• Authentication: Protects against attacks to build user trust.

But how do these factors impact SEO and rankings?

Impact of HTTPS on SEO

The big question is:

What’s the actual impact of HTTPS on SEO and rankings?

Karen Paulsen from consumersbase.com stated, “You never know the inner workings of Google’s algorithms, but there’s ample evidence to support the claim that HTTPS is crucial for better search rankings.”

Here’s how HTTPS affects each aspect of your website.

Rankings

Back in 2015, Google announced that the ranking of two similar sites could be decided in a tie-breaking situation by which one had HTTPS. If you and your competitor have the same quality signals for your search results, then Google may use the HTTPS as a deciding factor for which sites is ranked higher. So if your website does not use HTTPS while your competitor’s website does, then Google will probably rank their search results higher than yours.

If you do a quick Google search for a specific keyword, you will notice that more than 50% of Google’s first page results feature HTTPS sites. We are not saying that HTTPS alone is enough to get those sites on the first page of Google, but it does play an important role alongside other SEO best practices.

In a study by Backlinko, a moderate correlation between higher search engine rankings and HTTPS was found after a million Google search results were analyzed. Other studies have also found a minor correlation between HTTPS and higher search rankings.

Conversions

When undertaking in depth SEO to get your website to the top of search results, it is fair to assume that should you be at the top of the search results, you could expect to see a higher conversion rate as a result. However, according to GlobalSign survey, more than 80% of users will abandon a purchase if the connection isn’t secure due to the lack of HTTPS.

Given the inherent risks associated with online identity and banking detail theft, most online users are worried about their information being intercepted and misused online, and as such rarely trust websites without secure connections.

Not having HTTPS on your website could potentially drive most of your buyers away. It’s never too late to secure your website and provide your users with a secure platform that they can trust with their personal and sensitive information, without them having to worry about data interception or leaks.

Traffic

As well as offering extra security, the ultimate goal of getting your website to rank higher in search results is to bring in extra traffic, and hopefully customers who feel comfortable making a purchase now that they can see your site has HTTPS.  

People often click sites that are secure while avoiding non-secure ones. Additionally, Google Chrome has started labeling non-HTTPS sites as “Non-Secure”, which definitely gives off warning signals and will drive potential customers away from non-HTTPS websites.

As an internet user and shopper yourself, if you saw a website that had “Non-Secure” next to its name in your browser, would you even visit it, let alone make a purchase on it?

Site Speed

As one of the major signals used by Google to rank websites, a slow site with high load times will result in Google ranking it below faster loading websites, providing they have similar quality signals.

HTTPS websites have been found to be considerably faster when compared to HTTP websites. Check out HTTPvsHTTPS to see how much of a speed difference a secure protocol can make.

Not only does HTTPS make your website secure, increase confidence in customers and directly help your page ranking, we can see from the presented evidence that it can also indirectly improve other SEO aspects, such as site speed.

In Summary

Ultimately, we can see there is considerable evidence that moving your website to HTTPS will help the page rank higher with Google. Not only does HTTPS help improve your website’s overall SEO, but it is also a much more secure system for your website.

Security is one of the most important factors in the digital world today and making the switch from a non-secure HTTP site to a secure HTTPS site not only makes your website secure, but will also help protect your users’ data and sensitive information.

As you may have summarised from this blog, we highly recommend that you switch to HTTPS as soon as possible, not just for the security, but for the potential additional SEO benefits the change could have.

If your website is already using HTTPS, then we recommend that you test it’s security level by using Google’s Qualys Lab tool.

Do you know what’s so great about making the switch?

There’s nothing to lose at all. Making the switch to HTTPS does not cost you anything and will not affect your website in any negative way. So do it right now!

By Sharon Lliff

The post The role of HTTPS in SEO and the increasing significance of SSL for better ranking appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.