Many people don’t correlate site security with search engine rankings, but Google officials recently announced they are going to include site security measures among algorithm considerations for ranking sites. Google officials this month announced they are going to add SSL and HTTPS security protocols to the algorithm ranking signals that ultimately will improve the site rankings for websites utilizing them. That doesn’t mean your site suddenly will be at the top page of search engine rankings for Google, but it does mean that is you don’t use SSL or HTTPS security protocols, your site likely will rank lower than competitors who do use the security protocols.

Site Security: Ranking Signals Boost Google Search Results

Google’s algorithms depend on ranking signals to help determine how high a website should be ranked for paid and organic search engine results. Among common signals used are meta tags and meta descriptions, geographic location, categorization, demographics and other factors. Internal link ratios, authority and trust also are common signals used by Google and other search engines to rank webpage results. The signals also can include keywords, but relying solely on keywords to improve Google search engine rankings can be costly and fruitless at the same time.

Site Security: Each Page Must Have SSL/HTTPS for Rankings Boost

Just because you already have security protocols in place on your website doesn’t mean you will benefit from improved page rankings. Most people only have checkout pages and others that collect information from consumers protected, and only those pages will receive the benefit of additional rankings boosts. Each page must have security protection for it to gain the rankings boost. If your site is fully secured and every page is protected by security protocols, you will be well ahead of the competition. But if you don’t have every page protected, any competitors who do will gain that additional rankings benefit and possibly take away some of your market share.

How much emphasis do you place on fully securing each page on your website?