Google announced early this morning that they are now using SSL/HTTPS as a ranking signal in their Google search algorithm.
The
signal is incredibly weak and webmasters should not go crazy about it,
but it is indeed a signal now. Google said they are "starting to use
HTTPS as a ranking signal." Google did add it is "only a very
lightweight signal" and that it only had an impact on "fewer than 1% of
global queries." Google equated the SSL ranking signal with the Panda
signal and said it carries "less weight." Google did say they may
"decide to strengthen" the HTTPS ranking signal "over time" to "give
webmasters time to switch to HTTPS."
In March, Google's Matt Cutts said he'd like for HTTPS to be a ranking signal and I guess, even though he is on leave, he got his wish. Matt did decide to tweet about it even while on leave:
I Have SSL Already, Do I Need To Do Anything?
I
am seeing this question a lot, from e-commerce sites that have SSL on
their checkout forms. The answer is, yes, you need to still do
something. This ranking boost is applied to only the pages that have
SSL on them. Typically, SSL is only on those checkout pages and not on
your product pages, content pages, etc. So you need to make your whole
domain name, all the URLs, all the files, all the includes, all of it,
go over HTTPS. So yes, you need to do something.
This obviously
will take some time, you need to test and then test, to make sure the
HTTPS certificate doesn't show errors to your users. There can be
images, videos, and third-party includes that need to be adapted on the
pages to ensure that it doesn't give the user a security warning.
Is There A Negative Side To Going SSL
Google has told us time and time again, that if you switch your site over properly, there is no downside. Google has said before there was an SSL boost there there is no ranking change in a negative way for going SSL. Even back in 2012, Matt Cutts encouraged users to go SSL with their sites. Google even improved Google Webmaster Tools to support HTTPS vs HTTP reporting.
But the key is you need to do it right. Google gave this advice:
- Decide the kind of certificate you need: single, multi-domain, or wildcard certificate
- Use 2048-bit key certificates
- Use relative URLs for resources that reside on the same secure domain
- Use protocol relative URLs for all other domains
- Check out our Site move article for more guidelines 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.
Google also recommends you use Qualys Lab tool to test your SSL certificates and pages.
Let's not forget the HTTPS everywhere video presentation, watch that.
My
only concern right now is with sites included in Google News. Google
News has your URLs plugged in so I think it is more than just a 301 that
will communicate the change to Google News.
Google said they will get
back to me on that question, but once we hear back, we know Google News
can index and rank HTTPS content.
Webmaster/SEO Reaction:
So
what is the reaction of the SEO and webmaster community to this news?
Personally, I think there is little downside to going SSL, but it does
take time and testing to do right. SSL certificates are really not that
expensive, of course there are expensive ones, but you can buy cheap
ones that work the same.
We have forum threads at WebmasterWorld, Hacker News, Google+, Google Webmaster Help and Twitter. I even asked people what they felt, if there was a negative side to this, on Twitter, I'll include a screen shot of those responses below.
Read More:http://goo.gl/I195yp
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