Author: Dr. Peter J. Meyers / Source: Moz Just over 9 months ago, I wrote that 30% of page-1 Google results in our 10,000-keyword trackin
Just over 9 months ago, I wrote that 30% of page-1 Google results in our 10,000-keyword tracking set were secure (HTTPS). As of earlier this week, that number topped 50%:
While there haven’t been any big jumps recently – suggesting this change is due to steady adoption of HTTPS and not a major algorithm update – the end result of a year of small changes is dramatic. More and more Google results are secure.
MozCast is, of course, just one data set, so I asked the folks at Rank Ranger, who operate a similar (but entirely different) tracking system, if they thought I was crazy…
Could we both be crazy? Absolutely. However, we operate completely independent systems with no shared data, so I think the consistency in these numbers suggests that we’re not wildly off.
What about the future?
Projecting the fairly stable trend line forward, the data suggests that HTTPS could hit about 65% of page-1 results by the end of 2017. The trend line is, of course, an educated guess at best, and many events could change the adoption rate of HTTPS pages.
I’ve speculated previously that, as the adoption rate increased, Google would have more freedom to bump up the algorithmic (i.e. ranking) boost for HTTPS pages. I asked Gary Illyes if such a plan was in the works, and he said “no”:
As with any Google…
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