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With constant news of hacks and loss of passwords or other sensitive information, then this isn't such a surprise and is a welcome move from Google.

Google has been advocating sites use HTTPS (ie ensuring your website has a security certificate that says you are who you say you are, data is secure and encrypted).

Google has now announced it will reward websites that utilise HTTPS with a small ranking boost, as a sweetener. But more importantly has confirmed security will become a much bigger ranking signal in the future, and we should start looking to make all of our web pages secure.

This is from the Google Blog: HTTPS as a ranking signal

"...For now it's only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content — while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web"

So if you are planning a new website, then it's time to factor in HTTPS and invest in an SSL certificate. When Google says they "may" do something, then it's time to pay attention.

We utilise HTTPS on sensitive pages, such as edit listing or edit profile pages, or backend administration, so meet the early criteria. If you're confused, it's the "https" you see in your web browser, and (depending on browser) the certificate information, in our case registered to Lowi Ltd.

But the argument always used to be securing all of your webpages caused more load on your server, slower page performance due to encryption, when at the time it was always about serving your web pages as fast as possible. There also used to be SEO arguments that HTTPS pages couldn't get indexed or could harm indexing.

It looks like the old argument's and myths are being laid to rest and there is a campaign Google is promoting to re-assure people that performance is no longer a problem - Is TLS fast yet?

Interesting stuff, and a lot of people may not absorb it for a while, but this could become a very important change and a landmark moment for the internet as it matures. Rewarding secure sites makes perfect sense, and what better reward than Search Engine rankings?

Hat tip to Search Engine Land where I saw it first reported.

If you are ensure if your site meets the new secure standards, then Google recommends you test your site using the SSL Server Test from Qualys SSL Labs.

Any reaction or thoughts? Good bad or indifferent? Will you be investigating securing your website, or just something to consider in the future?

8 hours 21 minutes sleeping? How many people honestly sleep more than 8 hours? (other than kids)

It's just hack after hack....   After years of trying to convince us all that eCommerce is safe, we seem to be moving into a state of chaos.

Sony, Microsoft, Banks, High Street Chains, all have had their databases hacked.

I don't trust any firm to look after my credit card details, and is exactly why we send our customers to a payment gateway rather than holding details ourselves.

Google led the way with two stage authentication, and it should now be mandatory on any site that you have to enter sensitive information on, IMHO 

I like the way you altered the image to make me look short and fat!

Fill this in on the way out 

July 2014 (or starting at the end of June to be more specific) will now go down in SEO history as the month that changed the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

Dr Pete from Moz.com has done a great post detailing the changes and the impact according to the data samples they use.

If you are thirsty for SEO knowledge and analysis then this article is a must: The Month Google Shook the SERPs

If you can't be bothered, here's a brief take away of the key points.

1. No more mugshots! Authorship photos, those pictures you may have seen in the Google search results started disappearing on June 28th, and are now all gone.

2. In depth articles get more prominence. I was expecting this one, and this forum is positioned to take advantage of it, although it's early days if we got it right! Basically marking up your articles or blog pages with schema.org article tags. Dr Petes link explains more.

3. Video Thumbnails reduced in frequency in the search results. So less YouTube results displaying in your favourite searches.

4. Google Pigeon Update  This is the unofficial name Search Engine Land gave this major update after Google decided against using any of its black and white cuddly creature code names like Panda. Allegedly this has targeted local search and rewarded Directories and a lot of people are complaining it has lowered search quality. It's a bit early to say either way looking at our data, but it's certainly caused some controversy. 

So add all these together, and it's been quite an interesting few weeks in this weird world we call SEO.

From the Moz.com post, my favourite bit is actually one of the comments, which does tend to sum up a lot of peoples perception and thoughts of SEO

"Carlos - WisdomAndHealth.com

...what is the point of getting so worked up about Search and SERPs? 

I can't do anything about it other than produce good content and find customers through other channels (email, postcards, Ads, etc.). 

I can't hire an SEO "expert" because he/she has the same problem of not knowing what Google will do tomorrow. Hence, that's a waste of money better spent on more ad campaigns (which I can measure whether they work or not). 

This is exactly why we stopped tracking keywords and we haven't hired an SEO consultant in years. What's the point? It's too unpredictable, and unpredictable is no way to run a business."

Amen...

Thanks for the feedback Julia.

The forum blog is obviously new so the logical place seemed to be the General Forum area, which is below the fold, leaving introductions, help and more business discussion to show above the fold.

That said, potentially it could be moved, or maybe a link in the menu bar.

One of the motivators of the blog is to drive more traffic directly to the forum to increase exposure, and although it's early days, the 2 first posts have generated nearly 5000 pageviews in 2 weeks which is good news, and 57% exit rate on the tax post, and 36% exit on the Royal Mail Post. Hopefully a high proportion of exits was following a useful link.

My previous blogging exploits are well documented, and I eventually gave up, after sporadic forays, and minimal visits. Hopefully this way round combining the forum, directory and other members posts will be more successful.

Like I say early days, and appreciate those of you that are having a dabble with a blog post. Have turned a blind eye to Ray's post which is a duplicate article, but moving forward looking for original content only

Yup all done and live now, now we remembered to switch it on  

So closing this thread.

Hate bugs like this. We've tried everything short of slaughtering goats trying to replicate this issue.

As Clive says, if anyone is inadvertently taken to the mobile site when browsing on any version of Internet Explorer, please let us know.

Ref the spell checker, Firefox browser by default uses the USA spell checker. For UK you have to install the UK Dictionary option or English (British) as they call it.

Here's the help guide from Firefox:

support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-use-firefox-spell-checker

Visibility you will have, Top of Page 1 you must be

Complete your training you must....

I miss my Yoda smiley 

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime"

Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, uttered these words on the eve of Britain officially entered the First World War.

Quoted from the Royal British Legion website, who are urging us all today, exactly 100 years later, to commemorate the event tonight by lighting a candle.

"We're encouraging everyone in the UK to turn off their lights between 10pm and 11pm on 4 August 2014 – leaving only a single light or candle for this symbolic act of reflection and hope."

www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/ww1-centenary