Google has recently made a statement pointing to a new company outlook that safe websites provide a more secure and better internet on the whole, which means that they will provide search preference to sites that provide secure connection through HTTPS to their website visitors; the statement lead to speculations that Google may add a new ranking indicator that gives weight to sites that use HTTPS.

The search engine’s official blog made a statement that all but confirms all the speculations. According to their blog post:

“Over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal.”

Google’s move is certainly one that is much-needed. And it shows because their announcement is met with favorable responses from many website owners and web hosts, a contrast to the furor that their algorithm changes and patches usually inspire on the web. However, while Google has not said anything that points to sites without HTTPS prefix suffering from any ranking drops, it is where things will naturally go if the rankings of HTTPS sites are elevated. (basically, they’re not dropping in rank, but everyone else will be elevated. It boils down to the same thing.)

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Many web hosting companies, including Prestige Technologies, commend Google’s decision to reward sites that adopt better forms of security. For a long time now, getting people – whether they’re big traffic websites or just personal journals – to adopt better security practices is largely ineffective, but something as powerful as Google might be able to do the trick.

As for what it means for the common user – not much, really. If you have a website, you might want to check if you have the resources to get an HTTPS version out, but don’t lose sleep worrying about how to get one if you can’t afford it. If you’re a consumer, it means you may find that many websites on the Internet will be better suited to protecting your data from prying eyes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2014 at 10:00 am and is filed under Data Security, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.