What effect does HTTPS have on SEO for a public site?

[stevecounsell]

I have a client who I've been working with for 4 months but getting NO TRACTION at all on their SERPS.

This is unusual for me!

The only difference to their site from other clients is that the whole site is https so I'm wondering if that's making a big difference.

The site is: https://www.cnc-ltd.co.uk

Any help of hints would be great

thanks in advance

Steve

[KevinBudzynski]

No, http/https doesn't heavily matter in the serps (https is a bit slower, so the answer is actually a bit). However, it may have to do w/the implementation of the ssl.

Great post on it from Franz: http://moz.com/ugc/seo-for-https-with-s-like-secure

"Do you work on a big company site where everything is within the secure protocol? If so, these are what you have to  keep in mind for your onsite optimization:

1. If done right, an https site can rank as well as an http site.
2. Keep all your certificates valid, all the time, 24/7/365.
3. Https sites are more work for the servers, so there is the possibility of a slower download. Keep your site and the certificate on a high performance host. If it takes too long to download a site Googlebot might go bye bye.
4. The https-site and the http-site are two completely different sites; it’s a little bit like having a www version of the site and a non-www version. Make sure you have 301 redirects from the http URLs to the https ones.
5. The robots.txt is only valid if placed within the same protocol as the site. Place it within the https protocol.
6. The same goes for the sitemap.xml, Google verification file, and the other stuff.

Additionally: Keep all your files (images, iframes, etc) within the https protocol. There still is a nasty pop-up in Internet Explorer (6, maybe 7 too) if done otherwise. "

[stevecounsell]

Thanks Kevin,

I'll need to work harder to get them some rankings then

Cheers

Steve

[eminent]

Hi Kevin/Steve

Having a whole https sites tend to take longer to respond to the first byte and load i've found, which seem to be increasingly important in rankings.

I believe this can have an effect if the competition have faster more established sites and you are trying to get above them.

But another train of thought is that google may also trust you more if its a whole https site, so following Kevin's advice and having a https may be the most effective long term, unfortunately clients don't tend to like to wait.

Regards

Paul