Googlebot scans HTTP/2 sites (but there are no ranking benefits)
Starting in November, Googlebot will begin to support HTTP/2 crawling for “selected sites”, with significant efficiency benefits. However, there will be no real ranking benefits for those who adopt this new protocol. This is the summary of the announcement that appeared a few hours ago on the Webmaster Central Blog, which anticipates what will be the effects of this step.
What is the HTTP/2 protocol
In short, the HTTP/2 or h2 protocol is “the next major version” of HTTP, the protocol that the Internet uses primarily for data transfer: a defined version “much more robust, efficient and faster than its predecessor, thanks to its architecture and the features it implements for clients (the browser, for instance) and servers”.
The benefits of the new version
Only in terms of speed – an increasingly high priority for Google and more generally for the whole Web – according to some studies HTTP/2 provides an average improvement in the performance of page loading times ranging from 5 to 15 percent.
As a follow-up on developers.google.com explains, the primary goals for HTTP/2 are “reduce latency by enabling request and response multiplexing, minimize protocol overload by efficiently compressing HTTP header fields, and add support for request priority and push server”.
Its main features are:
- Creation of a single connection established between a browser and a site.
- Exchange of collected data through a multiplication process.
- Binary code for information exchange.
- Compression of http header.
- Use of push servers in case of predictable response requests.
- Prioritizing the most important page elements.
What HTTP means and the history of protocol
Let’s open a small digression: HTTP means Hypertext Transfer Protocol and is the system of rules that makes it possible to communicate and transfer files in the World Wide Web between clients (browser with its applications) and servers (on which the requested site is located), and therefore represents one of the foundations of our Internet browsing experience.
The first version of this application level protocol dates back to the late 1980s and is signed by Tim Berners-Lee and the CERN in Geneva; in 1991 HTTP/1.0 debuted, the first version actually available of the protocol, which underwent several updates and changes until version 1.1, the longest running (lasting from 1997 to 2015).
Version 2.0 was developed by the Internet Enginee