[dhimes]

I disagree. It's not that I don't think that secure websites are preferable, but instead I see Google's growing influence being able to shape the web the way Google wants it to be, and them being perfectly willing to use that influence. You can argue that the things they are doing now are making the web better. But are we assured that this will always be the case?

What happens if this influence turns completely and more directly self-serving? Such as, Google adwords customers are given higher organic ranking, weighted by how much they spend?

At first glance it might appear that such a scheme would work against adwords, but it really wouldn't because the ad-click advertising just doesn't work for a lot of us, but organic search does.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that.

[diafygi]

I would think in this instance that this is not just a Google opinion. It is now becoming a Best Practice[1].

[1] - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7258

[dhimes]

But shouldn't page rank be about content?