Google announces use of HTTPS as ranking signal

In an effort to bolster security on the web, Google has announced that it will boost the search engine ranking of sites that use HTTPS encryption by default.

The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that the search engine giant was flirting with the idea, but according to a recent Webmaster Central blog post, the move has gotten the green light.

After receiving positive feedback from tests run “over the past few months” on whether sites using secure encrypted connections can serve as a signal to its search engine algorithm, the new feature will affect “fewer than 1% of global queries” and carry “less weight than other signals such as high-quality content.”

Google plans on publishing “best practices” in the coming weeks to make the adoption of TLS much easier.