Improve Your Search Ranking By Changing To HTTPS
HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) and is simply a protocol to ensure communication is secure over a computer network. You can see the letters in the first bit of the URL web address. The ‘S’ prevents unauthorised parties intercepting information.
Google has been busy in recent months running tests to see if HTTPS can be used in its search ranking algorithms.
“We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal,” confirmed Google.
In a business world hungry for any lead on SEO, this announcement was received with great interest by the media.
Protection From Snooping
The move comes after revelations of government agencies conducting mass surveillance, as alleged by whistle-blower Edward Snowden in the US. Snowden is now in exile after revealing the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US and UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spied on citizens in the cyber space, which prompted calls for tighter security and an awareness around privacy issues for web users.
Google is trying to make sure “that websites people access from Google are secure.” Google uses HTTPS as a default for Gmail whilst Yahoo migrated its users’ data to secure servers in March this year.
Time To Switch Over
Google’s Webmaster Blog revealed the latest drive for increased web security, saying: “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.”
In light of this latest development, Varn is currently running tests to see if there is any impact on some of our websites.
For companies around the world that are striving to attain any advantage, however slight, for good Google rankings, there is a now a new incentive for improved security.
For information on how to make your website secure and improve SEO contact Varn.
