HTTPS ranking signal (2014): what changed and what applies now

What Google changed#

Google announced the change on 7 August 2014 in a Webmaster Central post by Zineb Ait Bahajji and Gary Illyes. After running tests over the previous few months that took into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections, it said: “we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal.”

Google framed it as part of its call for “HTTPS everywhere” on the web. The post also gave basic migration tips: choose the right certificate, use 2048-bit keys, do not block the HTTPS site in robots.txt, and follow the site move guidance.

When it rolled out#

Google’s post said it was “starting” to use the signal on 7 August 2014. It gave no rollout period and no completion date. This change was a new signal, not a named update with a rollout window, so there is no end date to wait for.

What is known about its impact#

Google gave the figure itself. At launch it was “a very lightweight signal,” affecting “fewer than 1% of global queries,” and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content. Google added that over time it “may decide to strengthen it” to encourage every site to switch from HTTP to HTTPS. Google published no later figure for how much weight the signal carried.

What site owners should do#

Google’s ranking systems guide no longer lists HTTPS as a system of its own. HTTPS now sits in Google’s page experience guidance, which asks “Are your pages served in a secure fashion?” That page also says that “beyond Core Web Vitals, other page experience aspects don’t directly help your website rank higher,” but that they still make a site more satisfying to use. In practice:

• Serve every page over HTTPS, following Google’s site move guidance when you switch.
• Check Search Console’s HTTPS report for pages that are not served securely.
• Treat HTTPS as a baseline for users and security, not as a ranking lever.

How to check whether it affected you#

This is historical: Search Console keeps 16 months of data, so it cannot show August 2014. If you kept analytics from then, compare a week before 7 August 2014 with a week in late August, remembering that Google called the signal very lightweight. The Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists the other updates of 2014, so you can check what else ran at the time.

Related updates#

• The mobile-friendly update was the next page experience signal, in 2015.
• The Speed update was the page experience change of 2018.
• The page experience update was the next page experience change, in 2021.