HTTPS Ad Serving

HTTPS SEO Benefits

Google announced last month that they are starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal. That means that sites which are fully served over the HTTPS protocol may get a slight ranking boost versus non-secured sites. If your SEO scores are neck and neck with your competitors this might be the one thing that can give you leg up on them.

History Lesson

Historically ads have largely been served over HTTP with little to no attention paid to HTTPS. You see, in the past, basically only banks and shopping sites used HTTPS and they had no need for running ads. Today, more and more sites are going secure to protect their visitors information. I assume that it has something to do with data breaches and leakage reports making the headlines on a regular basis. Still, there are many smaller ad servers that were unprepared for this bold move by Google.

AdvertServe Loves HTTPS

Perhaps love is a strong word, but here at AdvertServe we have proudly supported HTTPS ad serving since 2005. If your current ad server does not support HTTPS, why not give us a try? Our existing clients have been enjoying mature and well-optimized HTTPS ad serving for 8+ years. We are using the strongest and fastest ciphers supported by TLSv2 and TLSv3 to ensure that the SSL encryption does not negatively impact page loading speeds.

Potential Gotchas

Unfortunately there is one gotcha, which is related to third-party ads. Most of the larger third-party ad servers can provide you with HTTPS-capable tags. Some of the smaller ones, however, might not be able to accommodate it at this time. In many cases this can be worked out with your advertisers that are using such third-party ad servers to let you serve their ads directly.

Closing Thoughts

We aren't saying that switching your site over to HTTPS will boost you to a number one ranking. In fact, it may not change your ranking at all. However, AdvertServe is here if you decide to make the switch and your current ad server is the only obstacle that's in your way. As I said, we love HTTPS and we would love to have you as a customer.