The latest MozCast report shows that 50.3 percent of Google’s search result queries are now sites using HTTPS.
This growth remains consistent with the rapid growth MozCast reported previously; showing 25 percent in January 2016 and 40 percent in October 2016, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable. This increase marks an overall percentage change of approximately 100 percent.
Below is the graph from MozCast’s latest report:
Much of the rapid growth in HTTPs in SERPs can be attributed to Google’s support of safer internet policies.
According to the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog back in 2014, Google has, “… been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in [their] search ranking algorithms. [They’ve] seen positive results, so [they’re] starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal. 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 [they] give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS.”
This follows Google’s “HTTPS Everywhere” announcement that same year, which left many marketers wondering about the future connection between online security and SEO.
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and HTTPS (Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol) allow consumers to give and receive data online, most commonly via a web page. The main difference between the two structures revolves around the addition of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which adds an additional layer of security for the web page.
SSL is particularly important when dealing with online proceedings regarding payment, verifications, and authorizations, mitigating threats from potential hackers.
While Google is only testing the importance of a web page’s use of encrypted connections, their blog does mention that “over time, [they] may decide to strengthen [the weight of the signal]” as further incentive for web page owners to make the switch from HTTP to HTTPS, resulting in a safer online world.
If you want to learn more about migrating your site to HTTPS and how it can help your SEO, contact us today.
featured photo credit: Yu. Samoilov HTTPS Browser via photopin (license). Screenshot taken April 20, 2017.
