Google has said it will give
preference to more secure
websites in its search
rankings from now on.
The search engine has been
testing highlighting pages
that have HTTPS encryption
by default, and will now roll
out across its algorithms.
"We've seen positive results,
so we're starting to use
HTTPS as a ranking signal,"
Google said.
The decision could
encourage more sites to
turn on encryption, which
makes them less vulnerable
to hacking.
Encryption is used to
digitally scramble data as it
passes between a user's
device and an online service
in order to prevent others
eavesdropping on the
information.
It is used by many, but not
all, sites that show a little
padlock and use a web
address beginning HTTPS.
The "S" stands for secure.
But for many firms across
the web, adding encryption
has to this point been an
additional burden in terms
of time and costs.
'Best interest'
"Previously organisations
have shied away from
encryption due to cost
concerns or fears of
slowing website response
times," said Jason Hart, of
the data protection
consultancy SafeNet.
"But there are now high-
speed encryption
technologies available that
mean cost and speed need
no longer be an issue.
"So there really is no excuse
for any data to be
transmitted or stored in
plain text.
"Every company wants to
rank favourably on Google,
so it's in their best interest
to ensure web pages are
encrypted."
Google said that - for the
time being - whether a site
was encrypted or not would
not be a crucial factor in
how they ranked sites.
"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," Google's Zineb Ait
Bahajji and Gary Illyes said
in the blog post.
http://www.bbc.com/news/
technology-28687513
