Google has announced that it has tweaked its search engine ranking algorithm to give priority to website using HTTPS encryption. Websites using HTTPS will be ranked higher than websites without HTTPS.
This new move will encourage web masters to use HTTPS in their website and hence make www a secure place. Google has also been testing this for past few months and found positive results. These ranking changes will affect around 1% of global queries. But Google confirms that it carries less weight than content quality and other primary factors.
“over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal,” Google said.
This move is the part of Google’s effort to make world wide web more secure. Google also said that it will publish best practices to make TLS adoption easier for web masters. Google has also given some basic tips to web masters.
If your website is already running on https, you can check the status with the Qualys Lab tool.