HTTPS in Google Ranking

[quaffapint]

Looks like a good time to get into the SSL Cert selling business...

Google Online Security Blog: HTTPS as a ranking signal

For these reasons, 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. 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. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.

 

[Yellow Squash]

Interesting that they say not to noindex your HTTPS. Are they telling us to now allow the HTTP and the HTTPS to be indexable causing duplicate content? Or are they telling us to Noindex the http causing us to loose the link juice? Or are they telling us to 301 the http to the https and suffer pagerank degradation?

Wow. Nevermind. They are telling us that we need to (have to in the future, Im sure) move our sites from HTTP to HTTPS. That is messed up. Who links back to a site using HTTPS? Maybe this is a backdoor way of killing previous link building for everyone.

 

[quaffapint]

Who links back to a site using HTTPS? Maybe this is a backdoor way of killing previous link building for everyone.

Exactly. Sure, I can SSL my next project site, but now any link juice for it has to be to the https. I do wonder if they're putting in some special 301 check for http->https and letting the love flow through for this special condition.