Starting January 2017, Google will begin marking websites that use ‘http://’ over ‘https://’ as not secure.
Google have announced a plan to transition to the HTTPS protocol as the norm, stating that in the beginning this will only extend to Chrome users and for webpages that require credit card info, but Google plan to eventually extend this change to all pages and increase the severity of the warning. Sites labelled as not secure will have a large red symbol next to their web address:
This will have a negative impact on your site’s image and the trust between users and your site, potentially driving away traffic.
What should I be doing?
Businesses should already be adopting the use of the HTTPS protocol on their websites as mandatory best practice. This is because on the standard non-secure HTTP protocol it is possible to modify the site’s content, such as inserting malicious code, before it reaches the user. HTTPS encrypts the data exchanged between the user and your website.
To use the HTTPS protocol your website must have a Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, certificate. Such certification normally costs money but just recently a free service has begun operating. However it requires a significant degree of technical knowledge to complete the process. Additionally your host server would need to be reconfigured to adopt the HTTPS protocol and Google notified through the Search Console before it removes the ‘Not secure’ warning label.
How can Zodiac Media help?
Our agency can help you carry out all of the above in just a few hours. We can also go the extra mile and get your site an Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificate. This is the highest level of certification possible and is denoted in the user’s browser with a padlock symbol and a green highlighting of the address bar:
An EV SSL certificate is awarded when a business can prove it owns the web domain associated with it. This costs a substantial sum of money; however we have an exclusive offer with a provider that has reduced the price by hundreds of pounds.
Contact us today to ensure that your site proclaims the safest level of security available, giving your users peace of mind.