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HTTPS as a ranking signal

googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com

1–10 of 212 posts

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#2
Excellent move by Google that should push people to use HTTPS more.

Hopefully this will take into account the supported TLS versions and ciphersuites as well. It's sad to see sites that only supports TLS 1.0 and prefers a CBC ciphersuite.

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#3
We recently changed our existing clients site to 100% SSL when we launched their new site.

If only webmasters had an option to change http:// to https://, the entire move would have been slightly easier as "fetch as googlebot" returns "redirect" since we direct http:// to https://.

Apart from that, we've had no ranking loss for their keywords.

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#4
I don't get it. I have a website that is purely content and available to everyone. It has no user accounts, no sign-ups, no nothing but static pages. Why should I use HTTPS for that? To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks?

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#5
post #4

I don't get it. I have a website that is purely content and available to everyone. It has no user accounts, no sign-ups, no nothing but static pages. Why should I use HTTPS for that? To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks?

Not only attacks, but anyone on the same network on hops in between can see what sites and pages are being visited, the less data you leak, the less likely someone can build a case against you.

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#7
post #4

I don't get it. I have a website that is purely content and available to everyone. It has no user accounts, no sign-ups, no nothing but static pages. Why should I use HTTPS for that? To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks?

Using HTTPS will let you know if the website you're visited is being messed with by a company, country, or regionally controlled firewall or content filter. If someone operating one of these filters took issue with your site, they could block certain content and users wouldn't necessarily know that it's happening.

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#8
A good move. Well done for pushing the world towards a safer internet.

Quick question though. There was no mention of the type of certs used. Will plain certs be worth less than EV certs?

Hopefully Matt or any other Google search representative here can comment.

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#9
post #4

I don't get it. I have a website that is purely content and available to everyone. It has no user accounts, no sign-ups, no nothing but static pages. Why should I use HTTPS for that? To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks?

Is there a chance someone might modify the way your site appears for censorship or other gain?

Re: HTTPS as a ranking signal

#10
Makes sense. The reason seo spam is effective is because it's so cheap to get a new site (or ten thousand new sites) up and running. If you make that cost $50 per domain for the ssl cert, that will help ensure all those sites sift nicely down to the bottom of the rankings.

Bonus points if they allow a single bad site to tarnish the reputation of all sites under a milti domain cert.

We could have had this from the start if domain names weren't essentially free via domain tasting. But hey, better late than never.

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