Member Avatar for John_82

for all those seo professionals who have been suffering from low rankings because of lack of an https on thier website, i would like to introduce you to https://letsencrypt.org/ an intiative by Google, CISO and other companies to provide free https

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Kelly Burby commented: Well, I didn't know that I must say that's something good and surely going to benefit all of us ! +3

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As flagged, free TLS certificates changed the cost equation for HTTPS; and as noted, monitoring expiry is essential. The thread misses the practical steps and SEO/operational traps that cause most problems during a move to HTTPS. The checklist below focuses on what to do (and what to watch for) so the switch helps rankings and does not break traffic.

Quick checklist

  • Automate issuance and renewal with an ACME client (for example, see Certbot documentation). Short-lived certs require automation.
  • Serve the complete certificate chain (include intermediates). A missing chain can break older clients and monitoring tools.
  • Implement canonical 301 redirects (http -> https) and pick one preferred host (www vs non-www). Update canonical tags, sitemaps, and internal links to HTTPS.
  • Add the HTTPS property to your search engine tools and analytics so you don’t lose historical data.
  • Fix mixed-content (blocked resources) which can silently break pages; test pages after moving.
  • Consider HSTS only after confirming stable HTTPS on all subdomains; be careful before preloading.

Quick checks and tools

  • Test TLS config and overall grade with the SSL Labs test: SSL Labs SSL Test.
  • Use Mozilla’s config generator for secure server settings: Mozilla SSL Configuration Generator.
  • A quick expiry check from a shell:
    echo | openssl s_client -connect example.com:443 -servername example.com 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -dates
  • If using Certbot, validate renewal with certbot renew --dry-run (see Certbot documentation).

Cautions

  • HTTPS gives only a small ranking signal; incorrect migration (missing 301s, mixed content, broken analytics/Search Console) can cause more harm than benefit. Watch for CDN/load-balancer termination points that need their own cert updates. For mixed-content guidance see MDN’s notes on blocked content: Mixed Content — MDN.

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Member Avatar for johnp72014

Wow Its good intiative John_82. Thanks for the news.

Member Avatar for Dan_23

And if you want to prevent your website being unavailable because your certificate expired, you can use another free service to keep an eye on expiration dates - https://keychest.net

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