> As much as I herald the ongoing march toward mass HTTPS adoption, I'm not sure Google should be taking the credit.
Are they taking credit? I read this as more of a report on the state of HTTPS in 2016, not as Google taking credit for HTTPS adoption on the web.
Though to be fair, Google absolutely has done a lot to promote the adoption of HTTPS. They're a platinum sponsor of Let's Encrypt, they [made HTTPS a (small) positive ranking signal][1] back in 2014, and they're even using Chrome to push HTTPS adoption by [making the security problems with HTTP more visible to users][2].
The "ranking signal" for https sites has been instrumental in me selling full https adoption within multiple organizations. It's an easily understood, immediate positive benefit from SSL adoption.
Are they taking credit? I read this as more of a report on the state of HTTPS in 2016, not as Google taking credit for HTTPS adoption on the web.
Though to be fair, Google absolutely has done a lot to promote the adoption of HTTPS. They're a platinum sponsor of Let's Encrypt, they [made HTTPS a (small) positive ranking signal][1] back in 2014, and they're even using Chrome to push HTTPS adoption by [making the security problems with HTTP more visible to users][2].
[1]: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-s...
[2]: https://security.googleblog.com/2016/09/moving-towards-more-...