Yes, delivering your website over HTTP instead of HTTPS, even temporarily, can have several negative impacts on your site’s performance and reputation, especially with Google.

Here’s why:

Search Ranking: Google uses HTTPS as a ranking signal. Switching to HTTP can negatively impact your search rankings, even if it's just for a few days.
Security Warnings: Modern browsers display security warnings for websites that are not served over HTTPS. This can deter visitors and reduce traffic to your site.
Trust and Credibility: Users are more likely to trust a website that is secure. An insecure site can harm your brand’s reputation and trustworthiness.
SEO Impact: HTTPS helps with SEO in multiple ways, including maintaining referrer data. When switching to HTTP, you might lose important referrer data, which can impact your analytics.
User Experience: Security warnings and the perception of insecurity can lead to a higher bounce rate as users leave your site due to the lack of HTTPS.
Data Integrity: HTTPS ensures that data sent between the user and your site is encrypted and hasn’t been tampered with. Without it, data integrity can be compromised.
Ad Impact: If you run ads, some ad networks may limit or not display ads on non-secure sites, affecting your revenue.

f you must switch to HTTP temporarily, ensure to minimize the downtime and communicate clearly with your users about the reason and duration of this change. Also, make sure to switch back to HTTPS as soon as possible to avoid long-term negative effects.

Hope this helps!

User 10731776138602707728

Original Poster

Jul 21, 2024

Thanks Tom for the ChatGPT answer!

Varunprakash

Platinum Product Expert