Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.
E Dieter Martin: Yes. A very small one, though. Having said that, people are starting to look for the lock symbol in their browser bar and Chrome has started to flag non-ssl pages.in the browser.
JL Faverio: Can you elaborate on how Chrome is flagging these sites?
JL Faverio: Adam yup I`ve seen those too. just checking, thanks!
Adam Inlay: yep. insecure sites are frowned upon and even marked by Google as insecure. It`s easy to install a SSl, just do it ;)
Andrew Halliday: Yes - and as it’s free to do plus you can set up http2 there is no reason not to go SSL
Brian Klein: Yes it is, but only a small factor. If your website takes credit card info then you should have an SSL. Or at least an SSL on the payment page. But if your website does not recieve this data then it is not necessary. An SSL certificate can slow down your website, so you need to make the best decision for your visitors.
Paul Thompson: The protection of HTTPS is about soooo much more than just whether you take payment information on your site. If you run a website in 2019, you owe it to your visitors (and the rest of the web) to properly secure the transmission of data to and from your site.
And since many speed optimisations require HTTPS (http/2 for example) a well-implemented HTTPS site is usually as fast and sometimes faster than a non-HTTPS site would be.
Roger Montti: I agree Brian 100% that SSL is a soft ranking factor.
However, for the reasons outlined in previous posts, about Chrome browser throwing flags and roadblocks ahead of insecure sites, it`s absolutely necessary to obtain SSL.
The days of saying that SSL is only for sites that accept CC or confidential information are long past us now.
In fact, the insecure site blocking is going to get even worse.
Adam John Humphreys: Also, it`s worth note that 1.2 and 1.1 forms of SSL are not accepted so if your host is still offering that then Chrome will straight up block it soon as an unsafe site.
Ryan Jones: ssl is a rank factor. it`s just a very very tiny signal. Like think multiple decimal places low of extra value. e.g. if (https) ranking += 0.0009 or something like that.
JL Faverio: But it is also a HUGE UX factor. Don`t forget about your human users. :D
Ryan Jones: it`s more of a user factor than an SEO factor. But that wasn`t the question you asked ;)
Ryan Jones: Google knows how SEOs are. if they want a faster web we won`t make our pages faster. but dangle a carrot in front of us - even if it`s super super tiny, and we`ll all tell our clients they need to do it.
Is SSL a Google Search ranking factor? Or the lack thereof? 
