HTTPs for SEO Ranking Boost

Updated June 17, 2022

Increased Privacy Protocols

Google recently announced that they have added HTTPS for SEO relevancy to their algorithm. This is creating a big buzz in the SEO community. In this post I’ll share a bit of history and what it may mean for websites.

Short History Lesson

Five short months ago at SMX West Matt Cutts made the comment about SSL as ranking factor for Google’s algorithm. This seems to be in response to the National Security Agency (NSA) spying scandal. It’s centers around that HTTPS prevents wiretapping and surveillance in the transmission of traffic between servers.

If you’re interested in reading the transcript of Danny Sullivan’s interview with Matt at SMX, check out Linkarati’s post. In case you want the quick version, here’s the Q&A on HTTPS for SEO:

Question 12: When do sites get a boost for SSL (https://)?

Matt: Not yet. But I’m a fan of getting the web as secure as possible, particularly in light of Snowden.

Insignificant Boost?

Before running out and changing to a HTTPs for SEO ranking preference, consider Marketing Land’s opinion and recommendations:

• The boost in SEO rankings may be very slight. I predict that SEOs will soon abuse it and eventually Google will devalue it. The side benefit is that awareness of security for websites will increase, thus helping to protect visitors.
• Consider the type of certificate your website needs: single, multi-domain, etc.
• Be careful of how you change your website’s url address
• Don’t block your HTTPS site from crawlers which in essence will inhibit indexing and rankings
• There’s a price tag for the switch. It may be significant for larger publishers and those with numerous domains.

What do you think of this latest craze — changing to HTTPS for SEO rankings? Is a play to truly help visitors protect their information or something that will be abused by SEOs?

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photo credit – top: bobu
photo credit – body: Paul Keller