How Important Is Cybersecurity For SEO?

How Important is Cybersecurity for SEO? When prioritizing investment in SEO, the company should not ignore the importance of cybersecurity.

How Important Is Cybersecurity For SEO?
How Important Is Cybersecurity For SEO?

How Important Is Cybersecurity For SEO?

Before we know why cybersecurity is essential to SEO, let’s first understand what SEO and cybersecurity mean.

What is SEO?

You have certainly heard of Google, right?

So, every time a page is published on the internet, Google (and other search engines) try to index it so that it is found by those looking for it.

But there are thousands of pages being published every day on the internet and that means there is a lot of competition. So how do you get one page ahead of others?

That’s where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes in. As the translation itself suggests, SEO is an optimization for search engines, that is, a set of techniques that influence search engine algorithms to define the ranking of a page for a particular keyword that has been searched.

It is an art to get a high ranking in the organic listing of search engines like Google, Bing, etc. It is the process of optimizing the online content of a website so that the search engine prioritizes it (the website) and shows it as the main result for specific keyword searches.

The main actions that are part of an SEO strategy are: content creation, SEO on page, building authority and user experience.

SEO is the most important thing for a website; it becomes clear that the top five results of the Google search engine are clicked by about 70%.

Therefore, if the site gets a good ranking and is selected among the first five sites to appear in the search list, it will gain popularity and success.

What is cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is the art of protecting networks, devices and data from hackers or cyber criminals and ensuring the confidentiality and availability of information for intended/authorized users.

Cybersecurity is the main focus of the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. The better the ranking of a business website by the main search engines, the greater the chances of its products and services being discovered by visitors.But with increasing popularity, the risk of hacking also increases.

If a company compromises the security of your website, customers will never want to return to it. When prioritizing its investment in SEO (search engine optimization), the company should not ignore the importance of cybersecurity.

When a business website becomes a victim of hacking, it can have the impacts mentioned below

  1. Website traffic can be redirected to third party servers.
  2. Error 50X, internal server error can be generated.
  3. Massive 404 errors, content not found, can be caused throughout the site.
  4. Sites can be infected with malicious code, which can spread infections to all visitors.
  5. Sites can be infected with phishing attacks to deceive visitors.

When it comes to cybersecurity, people think it is simple and fast. Many business structures take care of the protection of e-mail, personal data, operating systems and other small components of online stores. However, the modern sphere of cyber thieves is more violated and causes more serious results.

Sometimes, a simple breach of personal security on the Internet can lead to the loss of all sources for life. It is the truth and you have to believe. Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said that people use computer systems like electricity or a phone service every day.

Bill Gates made the forecast suitable for future Internet users. Modern companies are highly effective when using computer systems. In addition, customer data and other information becomes very vulnerable. To protect their own business, people need to take security measures and implement them.

In the century when online sales are more popular than offline, cybersecurity is the key point to remember. Protect your business to gain access, instead of failing.

Risks for your company

When it comes to cybersecurity, people think it is simple and fast. Many business structures take care of the protection of e-mail, personal data, operating systems and other small components of online stores. However, the modern sphere of cyber thieves is more violated and causes more serious results.

Sometimes, a simple breach of personal security on the Internet can lead to the loss of all sources for life. It is the truth and you have to believe. Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said that people use computer systems like electricity or a phone service every day.

Bill Gates made the forecast suitable for future Internet users. Modern companies are highly effective when using computer systems.

In addition, customer data and other information becomes very vulnerable. To protect their own business, people need to take security measures and implement them.

In the century when online sales are more popular than offline, cybersecurity is the key point to remember. Protect your business to gain access, instead of failing.

So let’s see how a cybersecurity breach affects your company’s SEO.

Penalty and blacklist

Sites that are victims of cyber attacks are dangerous and risky for visitors. Cyber ​​attacks can be detrimental not only to the company’s reputation but also to the customers and search performance of the company’s website.

Major search engines, like Google, Bing, etc., charge long-term SEO penalties on compromised sites. They want to protect their users from the risk of cybercrime.

The integrity of the website can be maintained by taking appropriate web security measures, such as protection with SSL certificates.

Search engines can also blacklist some sites infected with malware.

Dreaded downtime

From a small business to a significant multinational, everyone prefers to have their website up and running as quickly as possible. A faster website means dynamic business.

Sites can be inactive for hours, days or months due to the impact of cyber attacks. Downtime for an extended period can cause serious concerns and start causing drop-down SERP (search engine results pages) drop-down lists. When Google realizes that the site is down, it recognizes that there is a security breach.

Content changes

Cybercriminals have several intentions and not just to steal data. Most cyber attacks on websites are based on SEO. After the hacking, hackers use various tactics to modify the content of the website, such as creating new secret web pages, adding external links, showing some different content to search engines, etc.

The modification of the website damages the reputation of the website in search engines like Google, negatively affecting the ranking position.

Site reviews

Website analytics are becoming an essential ranking factor for search engines. Google prefers sites that receive positive reviews, and sites with negative ratings are degraded. In this way, cyber attacks can affect your company’s SEO.

Hackers trying to hack the site can prevent search engine robots from accessing business sites and their content, keeping visitors away.

How companies can increase cybersecurity to avoid SEO problems

Prevention is better than cure. The company must ensure the following to increase cybersecurity:

Check the site for vulnerabilities

Vulnerability means breaches or flaws in the company’s software, firmware or hardware that a cybercriminal can exploit to perform unauthorized actions on a system.

Vulnerabilities can be managed only when they are discovered and identified. The result of the vulnerability scan provides a list of all systems found on the network, highlighting the systems that require the most attention.

Strengthen website security

The first thing companies can do to ensure cybersecurity is to install an SSL certificate. This security protocol is considered a sign of classification by the main search engines like Google.

Companies must ensure that they purchase appropriate SSL certificates for their websites. The SSL certificate provides security for online communications and protects business customers’ confidential information, such as credit card numbers, name, address, password, etc. It allows encryption of data in transit and protects it from unwanted users or hackers.

Companies need to take other security measures, such as having strong passwords, changing them frequently, using automated backups, installing firewalls, keeping software up to date, etc.

WAF

A WAF, or Web Application Firewall, is a system that sits between your website or application and the rest of the internet, acting as a barrier that blocks and protects your server against attacks by Hackers, Spammers, DDoS, SQL Injections and many other types of Cyber ​​Attacks.

WAF has been used a lot today to protect websites, Blogs, Electronic Commerce (e-commerce), cell phone applications, etc.

While proxies generally protect only clients, WAF protects servers. A WAF is implemented to protect a specific web application or set of web applications and can be considered a reverse proxy.

The web application firewall is a highly scalable filter, where a set of rules are applied for an HTTP conversation, in order to protect the application from common attacks, such as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and SQL Injection, before they reach hosting servers.

Thus, if you want to protect your company’s SEO investment, one measure that should certainly be considered is the adoption of WAF to protect your website from intrusion attempts.

Conclusion

Web security and SEO are two sides of the same coin. In short, cybersecurity is highly relevant to business SEO efforts.Businesses must plan and provide appropriate time, resources and budget for cybersecurity based on their importance.

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