Google recently announced that all HTTP sites will be marked as non-secure in Chrome As of July 2018.
The update could see online businesses with HTTP websites take a massive hit to sales and reputation if they are deemed ‘unsafe’ by the tech giant.
Why HTTPS?
HTTPS is a more secure version of the HTTP protocol used on the internet to connect users to websites, HTTPS – the S standing for secure – transmits data security through an encrypted connection, and simply put, keeps data entered in websites secure from third parties.
This is already a requirement for any site capturing sensitive information like credit card details etc. and as of July 2018 any web page that does is not loaded over HTTPS will be shown as not secure.
What is the likely impact of this on your website?
If your site isn’t updated to HTTPS users will see a “non-secure” warning when visiting your site, this is likely going to cause them to perceive that your site has been compromised or unsafe and could cause consumers to abandon their shopping carts or drop off from a site altogether if they believe it is not secure.
Additionally, if you are slow to move your site to the more secure https, this may have some negative effect on your SEO ranking in Google Chrome. Chrome’s search robots favour those sites that are showing https, causing non-secure, HTTP sites to drop in rankings.
Google is moving the entire web to https
The final step in the staged rollout will be that Chrome (and other major browsers) will label all plain HTTP pages as “Not secure” with a clear red warning. It will look like this:
What’s the solution?
Act now, don’t wait until your site is negatively affected, make your site secure by moving to HTTPS. With proper installation of an SSL/TLS certificate, the ‘not secure’ warning will be replaced by a green padlock icon.
Your site will need to be remapped so that all links and content is loaded over HTTPS.
Click Click Media can help businesses make the switch to HTTPS. Contact us today for more information.