Have you ever noticed that there are always four letters at the start of any website? Sure, there are exceptions, but besides those rare cases, you will almost always see HTTPS written before any website you open. 

But what are they, and do they serve any function? 

The simple answer is Yes! HTTPS is important and serves a very important function for your daily internet use. 

HTTPS (HyperText Transfer protocol secure) is simply an internet communication protocol (ICP) used to protect the integrity and security of the data between the user’s computer and the website. 

In simple words, HTTPS is a security measure to maintain the secrecy of data transferred from the website to your computer. From this, we can see that these few letters at the start of a website are important. The question now remains, why?

Why is HTTPS important?

As its name suggests, HTTPS is security used to transfer data between the website and your computer. It uses TLS (SSL) to encrypt normal HTTP requests and responses to make them safer. 

We don’t need to tell you how important internet security is in modern times. Therefore having even the smallest bit of extra security is always better than having none. our cloud hosting plans includes 256bit SSL Certificates as standard.

This alone should be enough to justify the importance of HTTPS. However, if you want more reasons to answer why HTTPS is important, here are some of the best reasons why HTTPS is important for you! 

1) Trustworthy 

What would you trust? A website with HTTPS in front of it or some other random letterings? The answer is naturally a website with HTTPS. While many people simply trust HTTPS because of familiarity, those who know about the inner workings of the internet choose HTTPS because they trust in this system.

HTTPS uses SSL/TLS protocol for encrypting communication between the server and user. So, you can learn how to install SSL. Because of this, the attackers have a harder time stealing the data during transmission. Naturally, there is always a chance of an expert hacker stealing the data between transmissions. However, the risk is simply lesser in websites that use HTTPS when compared to the ones that do not. 

Even if you, as a user, are unaware of this, your browser will do the job of warning you for you. Most modern browsers will mark a website that does not use HTTPS or its equivalent as a “not secure” website. This may not be obvious initially, but anyone who has been on the internet for a while will notice this flag. 

2) Security

By this point, you should already know that websites with HTTPS are more secure than those without this flag. This is the core aspect of HTTPS. We have already talked about this point a few times before. 

So keeping this point brief, websites that use HTTPS are more secure when used compared to the ones without this protocol. This protocol is meant to provide your website with security. The website owners and users get a secure transmission channel by using this protocol. 

3) Authenticates website better

Yes, using HTTPS protocol helps you to authenticate your website better. There is a small misconception that website cannot be authenticated without using HTTPS. This is not true since there are a decent number of authentic websites that do not use this protocol. 

The only difference is that it is extremely hard for your website to authenticate without HTTPS. You will need proof that your website is still extremely secure and safe enough for users without HTTPS. This costs a lot of additional time and resources, eventually costing you or your business. 

Given this, people naturally choose the easy and reliable way to authenticate their website using HTTPS. So, if you have website with http then redirect http to https using .htaccess file.

4) Privacy

One of the biggest risks of using the internet is that with enough time and resources, hackers can access your IP address and get access to your private information, including your physical location. Now presents you with both good and bad news. 

The bad news is that regardless of what you do, there will always be some risk in everything you access the internet. The good news is that you can easily reduce this risk by using authenticated websites with HTTPS. Hackers are smart people who do not want any risks and easy money. The problem with hacking a website with HTTPS is the resource they need to invest in to get a chance. Even if they use their resources to bait a website with an HTTPS protocol, they can be easily detected. 

This means you have a relatively lower chance of encountering a snooping hacker breaching your privacy. They would rather track people who either do not care or know about the risks of the internet and access unsecured websites. It’s easier for them to gain access to the information and remain unnoticed. However, you can recover hacked wordpress sites.

5) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A bit earlier, we talked about how browsers treat websites with HTTPS better when compared to the ones without. It’s not just the browsers preferring the websites with HTTPS but also search engines. 

Regardless of what search engine you use, be it google, bing, or Baidu, all of them prioritize websites with HTTPS protocol over those without. This means that if your website uses this protocol, it has significantly better chances of ranking well in SEO rankings. With how competitive search engine optimization is, you should guess how important HTTPS is for your business. 

The aspect of HTTPS helping with Search Engine Optimization is much simpler for the users. Although the inner workings are a bit complicated, the basic gist is that web crawlers determine that websites with HTTPS are better than ones without in terms of security, speed, and performance. Therefore they show you these websites on the front page of your search. The best part about this is that web crawlers make logical decisions. 

While there can be some errors, they are within acceptable limits. 

6) Mobile viability

It is well-known that nearly half of the internet is accessed through mobile. Both users, as well as the website owners, know this fact by now, and this is also the primary reason why a lot of websites are competing for mobile viability. 

Do you know what makes a website more mobile-friendly? AMP! 

AMP, or accelerated mobile page, is a technology that makes a webpage load quickly on mobile. Whenever you search a website on google, if it has lighting or a flash bolt next to it, it is a sign that it is an AMP. But did you know that AMP is almost impossible without SSL, a technology related to HTTPS? While it is technically not HTTPS, it almost always uses HTTPS whenever a website uses SSL.

Let’s be honest; why would anybody only use half aspect of an extremely good service when they can use the entire service? Using HTTPS will make the webpage faster. Therefore, HTTPS is logically and technically important for mobile-friendly websites. 

Conclusion

So why is HTTPS important? The answer is simple; it makes a website better. Whether providing a website with better security, speed, or versatility, HTTPS is one of the best protocols out there. 

Along with this, browsers and search engines prefer websites with HTTPS more than those without this protocol. People have been used to these five letters in front of their website to such an extent that they do not trust the ones without this protocol. However, if you choose best web hosting provider in Nepal like YohoCloud, then you do not need to worry about https or http, they will guide with https for your website.