Bad news, everyone – Google moving to use HTTPS as a ranking signal
As you know I love sourcing my references, here it is, straight from Google Webmaster Blog – Https as a ranking signal
Moving on from a talk that was given at Google I/O 2014 entitled “HTTPS everywhere”
Google is deciding to to use https as a ranking signal.
To quote (emphasis courtesy of this old simian)
…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. For now it’s only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content — while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.
They are also going to force your hand and pressure you to use https, as they are looking out for all our security. Right?
Wrong, young grasshopper.
The gambit is found in the bigger strategy
Think about it, and you’ll find the real reason for this move easily.
Google is continuing “not provided” on a bigger scale.
Websites running https do not trasmit information, such as “referrer” to non-https sites.
If you run a non-https site, all referer information will be hidden from you.
Businesses and individuals who spend money on https certificates (about 9$/year) will be seen as more authoritative
I found this review of cheap SSL certificates
Links coming from non-https sites might be devalued (there goes a big chunk of spamming)
So in essence, they are using “security” as a smokescreen to clean up their search results from small-time bloggers (good bye Mommy blogs) and thin affiliate sites, spam and spam links.
And they are making you pay for it.
Great post! On target as always.
It’s going to be one more thing that people will need to take into account. The price of an SSL certificate is not that prohibitive, especially for marketers that try to create brand presence.
The most upsetting thing is that there will be even more “not provided” entries.
“Not provided” is not done by https alone (although Google would like you to believe that).
Fact is, https to https traffic DOES transmit and thus, provide all referrer information, including URL parameters (like q=mykeyword , in this case ).
But Google secures the keywords by more smoke and mirrors than https (read: redirection and trickery).
The official line is:
We care about the security and privacy of our users by using https, sorry about the keywords nto provided thing.
The truth:
We love to hold the monopoly on this information.
Some information I just got
http://blog.cloudflare.com/google-now-factoring-https-support-into-ranking-cloudflare-on-track-to-make-it-free-and-easy
It is not free yet (only included in the paid plans), but at least the blog post makes it sound like they’ll make it free soon.