Google Answers If Security Headers Offer Ranking Influence [Video]

A recent Google SEO Office Hours featured a question about whether a security header conferred a ranking influence.

It’s not as far out a question as it first appears because a security header like the HSTS header plays an important role in assuring a secure  HTTPS connection and HTTPS is a light-weight Google ranking signal.

HSTS Security Header

A header is a response that a server provides to a browser (or a crawler).

The most well-known header is the response header like the 404 Error Response or the 301 response header.

The purpose of an HTTP header is to offer additional meta data about the webpage that a browser or crawler is requesting.

Security headers are a special group of headers that enforce different kinds of security to protect against various malicious attacks and keep the site secure for users.

An HSTS security header is a response that tells the browser that the webpage should only be accessed via HTTPS, …