Someone raised an interesting question in last week’s Webmaster Office Hours… whether Google varies the amount of the HTTPS based on the industry the site is in.  For example, would banking or ecommerce sites get a larger boost for being HTTPS than a regular blog or news site?

John Mueller said that Google does not give a different ranking boost for HTTPS based upon the type of site or industry the site is in.

No, the HTTPS ranking boost is not dependent on the type of site you have, so that could be relevant for pretty much anything.  However, keep in mind this ranking boost is not something that will propel you from page ten to page one, it’s more of a subtle thing, more of a tiebreaker that when we know the URLs are essentially equivalent, we’ll prefer the HTTPS version. So that’s something to keep in mind to keep the expectations in check, to make sure that when you’re working on this with the rest of your website, with the rest of your company, that you’re not suggesting that switching to HTTPS will make your website rank number one automatically.

On the surface, it does sound like a good idea, but once you think of the consequences, it actually wouldn’t be a good move for Google or for site owners.  If Google did give ecommerce sites an additional ranking boot for HTTPS, it would mean it was no longer a level playing field for all websites in those market areas and you could see some sites adding markers of an ecommerce site – even if it wasn’t one – just for the additional ranking boost.