Google Announces HTTPS as a Ranking Signal

Google search engine is now going to take secured connections as a ranking signal. That means websites with HTTPS connections will be ranked higher than those not having HTTPS.

Security is at top priority for Google. They automatically enabled HTTPS for Gmail, Search and Google Drive in the past years in order to make their users feel secure while communicating, sharing and searching for stuff on internet.

To extend the security beyond their own products and services, Google now wants the whole internet become safer for a normal search engine user. As a part of it, they are going to filter websites with HTTPS from those without HTTPS.

HTTPS

Taking HTTPS as a ranking signal would effect many of the small businesses and websites on the web. Bloggers who blog to pay for their hosting are going to get affected with this update majorly.

“We’ve also seen more and more webmasters adopting HTTPS (also known as HTTP over TLS, or Transport Layer Security), on their website, which is encouraging.” says Zineb Ait Bahajji and Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trend Analysts, Google Inc. in Google Webmaster Blog.

Google had been running tests since few months against websites for secured and encrypted connections and to consider them as ranking signal in their search engine algorithms. The positive results they’ve got made them consider HTTPS as a ranking signal.

Good News for Non-HTTPS Websites

Google is going to consider this HTTPS signal lightweighted for now. Only 1% of the global queries are going to affect due to this epic decision taken by Google. It will not dominate the top priorities of search engine such as high-quality content. However this is only temporary.

Google is planning to strengthen this ranking signal in near future. So there by the webmaster guides are encouraging all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS as soon as possible. However, they are going to give time to all webmasters to upgrade to secured connections.

Who is going to affect?

Small business owners and tiny bloggers will get affected with this update. It is going to show impact on bloggers who are making their earnings to pay their hosting bills. So this means, we are going to see bloggers quitting the web-publishing job and find a better one. I think, only those who are passionate about blogging will upgrade to secured connection at any cost.

Does Google took a good decision? What do you think of HTTPS as a ranking signal? Share you thoughts with us!

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