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Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Movement Toward Fully Secured Search Results

As the search engine with the continued dominance of queries in the U.S.; Google has been hinting through data analysis and algorithm changes that a fully secured set of results is their goal.

Will that reach 100%? Probably not for some of the fringe queries (what are fringe queries nowadays anyway?). However, for highly competitive queries, I believe we can expect the majority of page 1-3 results to be dominated by secure sites by the end of 2015 and see movement toward that 100% by the end of 2016.

As reported by Search Engine Land, Google recently mentioned their analysis on Google+ on sites that were eligible for HTTPs but were not showing as secured due to a "webmaster configuration". I can see a case being made that this move by Google is an added method to gain additional trust from queries and further alleviate spammy results from their pages.

What does this mean for the little guy?


The question for those small businesses and startups who aren't up-to-date on the latest demands from Google; "How can we compete against big business who can keep up with these changes?" Those of us in the industry know that it is not just this ONE change that can magically make a site rank but instead it is the culmination of many of these factors that lead to success. Small businesses and startups can seemingly be at a disadvantage but they can also be fairly nimble where many large businesses cannot. The availability of knowledge bases such as blog posts like this one and the millions of others can be quick glimpses into the small changes that can make a difference. Add to that the personal interactions that can happen on a one-to-one scale with their customers. Feedback and refinements to their offering can potentially be easier to handle or address whereas large corporations would potentially have to dive through many layers of approval.

In the end, securing your site (and securing it correctly) helps your customers regardless of what the search engines have in store. However, this is not the only change that will magically make you competitive in the search space. Smartly integrating the pieces that make up the puzzle and implementing them well is what will lead to success.

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