In 20 years from now, Google’s announcement that it will give priority ranking to SSL-enabled sites, will be seen as a key milestone that catalyzed a change in most (if not all) traffic on the Internet. On August 6th, Google announced a change to its ranking algorithm, stating that it will now include the use of SSL on a site as a “very lightweight [positive] signal.” Although, this might not have an immediate impact to website owners / operators that do not use SSL, this is still a “signal flare” indicating everyone should wake-up and be prepared to use SSL on their sites more broadly if they want to optimize their rankings in search results.
Google had previously laid out their intentions at its IO 2014 conference on HTTPS Everywhere, stating that all sites should use SSL because it provides:
|
|
Now that Google has put its huge search engine weight behind these beliefs, I expect this will be the first in a series of steps to push HTTPS Everywhere or the use of SSL certificates on all web sites. We should all applaud Google’s efforts to make the Internet more secure… and start to make changes in our use of SSL so we can tell our grandkids one day about those crazy days before every site started with HTTPS.
So if you’re ready to be a part of Internet history, talk to me about how Trend Micro’s unlimited SSL licensing model could help you expand your use of SSL – without breaking the bank.
Chris Bailey’s Bio:
Chris Bailey is general manager for Deep Security for Web Apps at Trend Micro. Previously Bailey served as the CEO and co-founder of certification authority AffirmTrust, which was acquired by Trend Micro in 2011, and as co-founder and CTO of GeoTrust, a major world Certification Authority acquired by VeriSign in 2006.
