HTTPS, also called HTTP over Transport Layer Security, is a way for web pages to send information through encrypted connection in order to prevent eavesdropping.
As a result of Google and other search engines switching from HTTP to HTTPS, more than 50 percent of page one results are showing HTTPS-enabled websites.
The research was conducted by the SaaS online marketing company Moz. According to Pete Meyers on April 24th, 2017, reports from from Moz's keyword tracking tools concluded that half of the page one search results in Google show URLs from HTTPS websites.
To come into its conclusion, Moz has tracked more than 10,000 keywords in their toolset.
The result is a 30 percent increase from results in July 2016. As of earlier this week, that number topped 50 percent.
Based on this trend, Moz predicted that 70 percent of the page one search results could be HTTPS by the end of 2017.
While the trend shifted, Google has no plans to boost its algorithmic rewards on secured HTTPS websites. Google has revised the idea, but went against it eventually.
But since Google's statements can and frequently change against time, some webmasters and web owners may take Google's thought as a lie or the truth. Google isn't promising anything and it has never boost ranking benefits on HTTPS yet.
One of the reason why Google has not adopted the algorithmic rewards for HTTPS websites is because it's happy with the adoption rate. An algorithmic change regarding how it sees HTTPS could cause a collateral damage in HTTPS adoption.
So even if Google does or doesn't reward or penalize websites for not using HTTPS, changes have made towards putting more emphasize on HTTPS. Google's web browser Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox, for example, have been warning visitors when visiting non-secured pages when those pages collect sensitive data.
And because of the adoption rate increases and the fact that more HTTPS pages are shown on the first page of Google's SERP, webmasters and web owners can expect the pressure to switch to HTTPS.
For those websites that are new, Meyers recommended that they jump straight into HTTPS as soon as possible. Security certificates are inexpensive while some are free. HTTPS have risks but are relatively low. At the very minimum, "make sure to secure pages that collect sensitive information or process transactions, and keep your eyes open for more changes," said Meyers.
When Moz released its research, top 10 websites have already been using HTTPS in most (if not all) of their pages.