John Mueller recently commented that switching to HTTPS would not increase your rankings noticeably in Google, despite many webmasters scrambling to make their site’s secure following Google’s announcement that it was a lightweight ranking factor. Mueller has also made some additional comments about HTTPS as rankings, particularly that some webmasters were considering that it would wipe the slate clean of any Google penalties when they made the switch.
One of the problems we were seeing were websites with manual actions, or severe quality problems, that tried to work around those issues by just moving to HTTPS. You really need to fix those problems regardless, moving to HTTPS isn’t going to compensate for that.
Rumors of switching to HTTPS would reset penalties or cause them to be re-evaluated started shortly after Google’s original announcement, especially since Google would essentially consider a new HTTPS as a new domain. But those who switched saw the same penalties had followed them, but people still considered the possibility that it could help those sites with manual actions.
Mueller’s post really just clarifies that switching to HTTPS will not reset penalties or be a strong enough factor to compensate for anything wrong with the site algorithmically in Google’s eyes. So while HTTPS is considered a best practice, it is not enough of a best practice to help a penalized site.
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Jennifer Slegg
Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
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