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Making search more secure
October 18, 2011
We’ve worked hard over the past few years to increase our services’ use of an encryption protocol called SSL, as well as encouraging the industry to adopt stronger security standards. For example, we made
SSL the default setting in Gmail
in January 2010 and
introduced
an encrypted search service located at
https://encrypted.google.com
four months later. Other prominent web companies have
also
added
SSL support in recent months.
As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the
personalized search results
we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users. Over the next few weeks, many of you will find yourselves redirected to
https://www.google.com
(note the extra “s”) when you’re signed in to your Google Account. This change
encrypts your search queries
and Google’s results page. This is especially important when you’re using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a WiFi hotspot in an Internet cafe. You can also navigate to
https://www.google.com
directly if you’re signed out or if you don’t have a Google Account.
What does this mean for sites that receive clicks from Google search results? When you search from
https://www.google.com
, websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won't receive information about each individual query. They can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through
Google Webmaster Tools
. This information helps webmasters keep more accurate statistics about their user traffic. If you choose to click on an ad appearing on our search results page, your browser will continue to send the relevant query over the network to enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.
As we continue to add more support for SSL across our products and services, we hope to see similar action from other websites. That’s why our researchers
publish information
about SSL and provide advice to help facilitate broader use of the protocol. We hope that today’s move to increase the privacy and security of your web searches is only the next step in a broader
industry effort
to employ SSL encryption more widely and effectively.
Posted by Evelyn Kao, Product Manager
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