Google is working to further boost web security by encouraging administrators to use encrypted websites so they can appear early in Google's search results.
Google, the world leader in internet searches, is tweaking its PageRank software with a new search algorithm that will favor websites that use encryption to protect visitors' personal information. The web giant's special treatment towards encrypted websites means those sites will appear early on the Google search results, rather than being lost in the later search pages, top Google engineers revealed, Wall Street Journal reports.
Google's purported plans to favor encrypted sites is still in early stages of discussion, but Matt Cutts, Google engineer in charge of quality control for the search results, revealed at the SMX West marketing conference last month that the change is likely to happen sometime this year, the Journal reports. Google's interest in supporting web security is not a complete surprise, as the company itself used HTTPS encryption for its own services including Search, Maps and Gmail for quite some time now.
Google's search algorithm helps the company to control how and what type of data appears on its search such as sites with malicious content get pushed back in the search rankings. If the latest policy comes into effect, Google will be building on its 200 plus signals that help determine search rankings, WSJ says, most of which are not publicly discussed. Web developers that follow Google's best practices rank higher in Google Search results; and in turn appear on the search site to generate more traffic.
While the change not just adds an additional layer of security to Web users, it also helps web developers adopt encryption more widely. This results in lesser snooping activities by third party companies.
Decoding encrypted data requires a software key, which makes it difficult for hackers to gain unauthorized access. The Internet search and cloud service provider prioritized web security following the disclosure by the NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden that the government was using security vulnerabilities to secretly gather intelligence. The new change is likely the after effect of the discovery of Heartbleed bug, a security flaw in the OpenSSL encryption that created havoc in the web industry. While companies are finding new ways to protect users' data from the newly discovered bug, Google's change in PageRank algorithm will encourage developers to go a step further to fight the vulnerability.
