Google Search A/B Tests Removal of URL Schemes (e.g. http://)
Tom Klein is a highly experienced go-to partner for web-based & software development with skills in digital marketing, overall business, and modern technologies. At his young age, he already has 10+ years of work experience ranging from small and mid-sized start-ups from Canada, the UK, Germany and the United States, all the way up to multinational enterprises in the financial and technology sector.
His portfolio includes Google-backed companies, YouTube MCNs, banks and e-mobility startups besides a variety of other brands & companies.
His first website went live in 2006.
Today, I opened a new tab to search for something on Google and realized something was missing. The scheme was removed from the results.
Did they just removed HTTPS?
No. Thinking Google removed https:// from the search only, I tried looking up an http-only site, but the http:// scheme was hidden from the search too.
Interestingly, Twitter cards in search still show the URL's scheme and trying it from another computer brings it even back which lets me conclude that they're still A/B testing it out.
How does it matter though?
It's maybe a security risk. You can't see whether the site you're going to visit uses a secure connection or not. Users may start to assume all sites listed are transported through an encrypted channel.
To check it beforehand, they have to hover your mouse over the link to detect whether or not a site is transported securely.
It simplifies the results though. Since Google started prioritizing HTTPS-enabled websites over plain HTTP, mostly secure URLs will pop up. If it's not the case, then you may get a more relevant result.
What's your opinion about this change?
TL;DR: Google tries to remove URL schemes like http: and https:.
