WHAT IS IT?
On August 6, 2014, Google officially announced that it would be factoring a new ranking signal into global search queries: HTTPS encryption. Rumors of the new signal have circulated for some times, since Matt Cutts made a call for “HTTPS everywhere” but this is the first confirmation that Google is indeed giving a minor rankings boost to sites that have migrated from HTTP to HTTPS. According to Google:
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.
HTTP (adding a SSL 0248-bit key certificate) stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and the “S” stands for “secure” or “secure connection.” HTTP and HTTPS both define how online communications are formatted and represented to a user.
IMPACT
In factoring HTTPS as a ranking signal, Google is placing an emphasis on user safety, and it makes sense that a secure connection will benefit a site’s ranking. Nonetheless, there are other impacts to the actual performance of the site that must be considered, such as:
- Loss of Ranking Due to 301 Redirects: migrating a site to SSL will require a large quantity of 1:1 redirect mapping across the entire domain, and redirects do not pass full value to the new page
- All Assets Must be Secure: Images, Videos and Third-Party assets included on your site will require secure adaptation to ensure that users don’t receive a security warning.
- SSL Certificate Fees: This can be a costly and recurring expense.
- Slower Load Times: Secure pages are known to have slower load times, which can have a contradictory effect on your ranking, as Google identifies site speed as a ranking signal.
SEO IMPLICATIONS
The following details explain the impact that HTTPS will have on search results:
- The HTTPS Ranking Signal Will Run in Real Time, unlike some of the most recent algorithm updates like Penguin or Panda.
- The HTTPS Ranking Signal is on a Per-URL Basis, instead of a site-wide basis. This allows you to migrate sections of your site to test the impact to your rankings before migrating the entire site.
- Google’s Change of Address Tool is Not Supported. When sites are migrated, Google recommends webmasters communicate the change through the change of address tool in Google Webmaster Tools. However, the tool does not support HTTPS migrations, making it important to implement a 301 redirect to communicate the change.
- Google News Publishers Can Switch to HTTPS, putting to rest concerns of any negative impact on the Google News index, which differs from the normal Google index.
- HTTPS Ranking Signal is Unrelated to Google Panda or Other Algorithms: it is part of 300+ standalone signals Google uses to rank a page, independent of any other signal or algorithm.
CONSIDERATIONS
Google suggests considering the following when deciding whether or not to migrate your site to HTTPS:
- Decide if you need a single, multi-domain, or wildcard certificate
- Use 2048-bit key certificates
- Use relative URLs for resources on the same secure domain, and protocol relative URLs for all other domains
- Check out this site move article for guidance on how to change your website’s address
- Don’t block your HTTPS site from crawling using robots.txt
- Allow indexing of your pages by search engines where possible
- Avoid the noindex robots meta tag
- Add HTTPS tracking in your corresponding analytics platform
- Add the HTTPS version of your site in Google Webmaster Tools
CONCLUSION
Google assures us that for now, HTTPS is a minimal ranking factor that impacts only 1% of global searches. There is time to carefully weigh the pros and cons of site migration before making the change from HTTP to HTTPS, and to decide if it makes sense for your business. In the meantime, there are far larger and more immediately impactful ranking signals to focus on. If and when you decide move to HTTPS, make sure to track the migration carefully within your analytics platform and with Google Webmaster tools.
The post POV: HTTPS as a Ranking Signal appeared first on Razorfish Search.
