70% Of Search Results Will Be Https By End 2017

Only 9 months ago Dr. Peter J. Meyers from Moz noted that 30% of all search results were filled with websites using "Https", that number now sit's at 50% and is expected to grow past 70% of all search results.

Image Courtesy of Moz

Let's take a close look at why.

Back in 2014 Google had announced that going HTTPS — adding an SSL 2048-bit key certificate on your site — would give you a minor ranking boost.

But what's the difference?

HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http) is a system for transmitting and receiving information across the Internet. HTTP is an “application layer protocol,” which ultimately means that its focus is on how information is presented to the user, however, this option doesn’t really care how data gets from Point A to Point B. 

It is said to be “stateless,” which means it doesn’t attempt to remember anything about the previous web session. The benefit to being stateless it that there is less data to send, and that means increased speed.

When is HTTP beneficial?

Http is most commonly used to access html pages, and it is important to consider that other resources can be utilized through accessing http. This was the way that most websites who did not house confidential information (such as credit card information) would setup their websites.

HTTPS: Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol

HTTPS, or “secure http”, was developed to allow authorization and secured transactions. Exchanging confidential information needs to be secured in order to prevent unauthorized access, and https makes this happen. In many ways, https is identical to http because it follows the same basic protocols. The http or https client, such as a Web browser, establishes a connection to a server on a standard port. However, https offers an extra layer of security because it uses SSL to move data.

For all intents and purposes, HTTPS is HTTP, it’s just the secure version. 

To get technical on you, the main difference is that it uses TCP Port 443 by default, so HTTP and HTTPS are two separate communications. 

HTTPS works in conjunction with another protocol, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), to transport data safely (which is really the key difference that Google cares about). 

Remember, HTTP and HTTPS don’t care how the data gets to its destination. In contrast, SSL doesn’t care what the data looks like (like HTTP does). 

That is why HTTPS really offers the best of both worlds: Caring about what the user sees visually, but also having an extra layer of security when moving data from point A to point B.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Google prefers sites that are trusted and certified.

This is because users can be guaranteed that the site will encrypt their information for that extra level of security. However, you should understand that getting a certificate can be an involved task (which is why it allows for higher ranking benefits).

References: Moz.com and ahrefs.com

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