Factors Impacting the SEO of Government Websites

"Following the recent OMB memo that all publicly available federal websites and Web services must implement HTTPS by December 31, 2016, Web content managers across government are considering the SEO (search engine optimization) implications of the transition, among other details.

In August 2014, Google confirmed that HTTPS is a ranking signal in their algorithm. But being a ranking signal and having an impact on findability are two different things. In the post, Google describes HTTPS as “a very lightweight signal—affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content.” And, in October 2014, Bing found the idea of an HTTPS boost almost laughable. SearchMetrics recently found an increasing proportion of top-ranking sites use HTTPS [PDF, see page 10], but it’s still small and rankings are attributed primarily to brand strength."

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https://www.digitalgov.gov/2015/09/02/https-and-other-ranking-factors-what-impacts-the-seo-of-government-websites/