Back in 2014, Google stressed that it planned to show the most relevant, and secure, websites within its organic results as possible and, a few years on, it appears that it’s becoming a reality.
In fact, based on a report by Pete Meyers at Moz, half of the websites that feature on page one of Google’s search results are now HTTPS URLs. This marks a substantial rise of 30 percent when compared to the middle of 2016 and, if growth continues at a similar rate, we are looking at HTTPS URLs making up over 70% of the top ranking sites within Google by the end of 2017.
However, despite this rise in the organic rankings, Google have recently stated that they have no plans to boost their HTTPS ranking signal at present, although we are sure that this is something that they are likely to do over the coming years.
One of the reasons why Google is choosing not to boost their HTTPS ranking signal, for the time being, is likely to be down to the fact that not all major websites have yet made the switch from HTTP, therefore the search giants are likely to be unwilling to penalise major players such as eBay, The Daily Mail and The Independent, as all of their ranked pages on Google fail to be secure according to research.
So, in short, we recommend that you look to make the switch, especially as security certificates are fairly cheap these days – ranging from free to £150.00 per year – and, if it helps to improve your organic rankings on Google then it’s a no-brainer.
Read the full article by Peter Meyers here.
