In the construction industry it’s easy to be a bit behind the times, especially when it comes to developments on the internet, however it’s really important that we keep abrest of the latest developments as this will give those early adopters a competitive advantage. One such development is the announcement by Google that they will rank websites using the secure connection HTTPS.

 

What is HTTPS?

 

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocal and it’s a fundamental element of what makes the internet work, if you look in front of your website’s domain (or before www. if you’re using that) you’ll probably see http://. HTTPS stands for hypertext transfer protocol secure and means the added security capabilities of SSL/TLS to standard HTTP connections.

 

Why are Google doing this?

 

Google’s Zineb Ait Bahajji and Gary Illyes announced Google would be using HTTPS as a ranking signal in a blog post of Google’s webmaster blog, they said Google is keen to make the internet a securer, safer place to be and one way they could do this is by encouraging webmasters by making https a ranking signal.

 

Does the construction sector really need to bother?

 

If you've got a website, no matter what sector you’re in, you need to implement this. The sooner you implement this the better you’ll perform against competitors that haven’t got round to it, and it’s likely this will have a lasting impact as you’ll benefit from Google’s historical bias.