How Does WordPress Website Security Affect Your SEO Rankings | Graphic Design Junction

Who does not want to rank their website at the top of the Google search? Although there are various ways to attract visitors to your website, from paid ads to delivering cutting-edge content, security in the website also plays a pivotal role in SEO ranking. Whether you develop a CMS-based website or build it from scratch, not employing proper security measures on websites will influence the SEO in the end, and WordPress websites are no different. All users, be it WordPress-based websites’ or other CMS site, wants to navigate within the website securely. Thus, security also became a critical aspect of SEO ranking. This article will give a complete walkthrough on SEO ranking and various WordPress website security factors responsible for SEO ranking.

What is SEO all about –

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art & science of optimizing a website to rank it higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific phrases or keywords. The primary objective of SEO techniques is to boost the visibility and organic (unpaid) traffic to a target website for search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. According to the Research and Market report, the global market for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was at 57.1 billion USD in the year 2020. As per the projection, it will reach a revised market cap of 99.4 billion USD by 2027. This upward hike will reflect a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2 percent from 2020 to 2027. SEO is a complex and multi-faceted discipline that involves several on-page and off-page factors. The security of websites plays a remarkable role in the SEO-based ranking of websites. The dependency of SEO on a website’s security comes under on-page SEO. 

Make your WordPress-Website users feel safe

Every user wants to browse safely without compromising their details to unknown or online privacy. The news headlines covering sites getting hacked and personal information such as passwords or credit card numbers being compromised often make it difficult for users to trust websites that lack security. Therefore, companies offering WordPress sites must get an SSL certificate (having HTTPS). HTTPS works as a green flag for both users and SEO. If you plan to launch a WordPress website for your business/brand, consider getting an SSL certificate for your domain.

WordPress Website security-related factors that affect SEO

Website owners and business executives have noted significant aspects related to website security that adversely impact SEO ranking in WordPress and other sites. Here is a list of some essential security factors affecting SEO and ranking.

1.  Get an SSL Certificate:

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a security protocol that works with Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to make it HTTPS. Implementing SSL to your WordPress site will enable your website to send and receive encrypted data over the internet. Website visitors can enjoy a safe experience while browsing the website. Since the visitor will remain longer on your website or use it frequently because of the security measure, it will help increase your WordPress website’s SEO ranking. Although it is difficult to quantify the impact of implementing an SSL certificate on your WordPress site’s SEO rankings, it will undoubtedly bring an advantage over other websites. There is no need to buy high cost SSL certificate as a single cheap SSL certificate can secure the site.

2.  Bot-based Visitors and Fake Users:

Another security concern that WordPress website hosting companies must ponder is not to implement bots to increase the visitor rate or the number of audiences. Bots are small programs like search engine crawlers that do automated tasks usually performed by humans, such as website visiting, commenting on blogs, etc. Using automated bots is a bad SEO practice. In addition, bots steal your content and employ it elsewhere. It makes your content less unique. Hence use of bots often lowers the SEO ranking.

3.  SEO Spam:

To understand how security can impact SEO’s ranking, website owners and business executives must be clear about how hacking attempts on WordPress sites deteriorate SEO ranking. A fully functional website with HTTPS won’t be enough. It is because website hackers are mostly black hat SEO guys who employ unethical methods to inject links to your sites to boost their website rankings. It is called SEO spam. These adversaries will insert hyperlinks, redirect to other sites, add web pages, and even change the content links to harm your site. These activities often drop the SEO ranking of your WordPress site. As a website owner, you must thoroughly check such anomalies periodically.

4.  Sudden Deletion of Content:

Besides spamming, website cyberattacks can also lead to content deletion. Malicious attackers often try to deface the WordPress website using techniques like DoS and DDoS attacks. If your visitors & users see a 404 error, they will most likely go to other competitors’ websites. Encountering such an error once or twice a month is normal. But too many of them & frequently facing 404, 500, or other such errors will damage the website’s SEO. Website owners must pay attention to those threats as they can hamper the WordPress website’s SEO.

5.  Search Engine Blacklisting is Irreversible:

A lot of cybercriminals perform attacks to deface the site, link low-ranked websites, or perform attacks to increase website downtime. Again, some black-hat SEO professionals might use inadequate tactics to boost website traffic which is not legit from the SEO guidelines. All these might increase your WordPress website’s chances of getting blacklisted by search engines like Google. Such lowering of SEO ranking is often irreversible and might shoo away your customers or potential visitors.

Conclusion

Numerous (more than 200) factors help a WordPress website rank a search result. It is challenging to escalate with good SEO but easy to fall in terms of SEO ranking. Thus security plays a significant role in boosting your WordPress site. If you do not have an SSL certificate for your WordPress site, get a low cost or cheap SSL certificate today. Even getting a cheap SSL certificate can help push your SEO ranking so that your WordPress site gets more traction and users can visit without fear.




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