Google's Matt Cutts Wants To Give Ranking Boost To SSL Sites

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, because it is blatant social engineering: there are very, very few search terms for which a site's SSL capabilities have any relevance, and so it is outright dishonest for SSL to affect their ranking.

On the other hand, it is not hard to argue that SSL desperately needs to be more widely adopted, and current attempts at changing Web developer/host behavior have not been effective in driving that adoption. Perhaps search engine ranking -the lifeblood of many Web-based businesses- will force them when gentler methods will not, by providing what amounts to a threat to their business models.

But is the situation really dire enough to be worth corrupting the entire concept of Web searches?