Google to promote https over http sites in search results

Google announced yesterday it would be giving  a leg up to sites that used HTTPS in search results.

HTTPS is denoted by the padlock icon that shows up in the browser window and serves to  the browsing session secure from snoopers, but it had failed to gain wide acceptance outside of webmail and banking, partly due to the extra load it put on servers.

Though only a small step that would make a difference to only 1 per cent of search results, Google's move could, however, make huge difference for anyone hosting a site, The Verge reported.

A growing number of services were also ready to take on that server load for free, to facilitate sites to make the switch if they wanted a little more search traffic.

Unencrypted sites make it easy for attackers to see which sites one was visiting.

Google said in a blog post, ''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.''

Google had a vested interest in making people feel more secure online given the massive ad revenues it generated through search results and other web content, say commentators.

THey add, Google's profits would be adversely affected if people were to have security concerns over web surfing.

Even so, encryption was not likely become the most important factor in Google's website-ranking equation. The quality of a website's content and its relevance to a search request would continue to remain the most influential ingredients.

Websites, however, are keen to do whatever it takes to get a high rank on Google's search results to attract traffic and make money.

With the dominance it enjoys in the search space in US and Europe, its rankings can be crucial to the success of websites.

Though encryption would come with extra costs to website owners, they could lose even more if they fell out of Google's favour.