Since at least 2014 Google has been encouraging websites to go secure by using https (installing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate). Just recently they have indicated that it is becoming increasingly important in their search ranking algorithm.
What does that mean? It means you should change your site to SSL. It is not a difficult process. First you install the certificate and then you tell your pages to all use SSL only. Need help? We can handle it for our hosting clients quite easily and even if you’re not our client, we can probably help you out.
A few years ago Google made all of its search secure. Check it out for yourself. When you go to google.com, you’ll find yourself at https://www.google.com. There will always be that https. The general assumption was, because it was encrypting the data, it would affect the speed, even if it was just a little. But it didn’t. So if there is no change in performance in going from non-secure to secure, why not make the whole Internet secure? That seems to be Google’s plan and it isn’t a bad one. Once Google realized it didn’t really affect the speed for their site, they began increasing the expectation of security in their search algorithm. And it has reached the point where sites focusing on search rankings really need to make their site secure.