The Google Chrome Security Team are now seriously considering showing a message to visitors of websites that aren’t running on SSL/HTTPS, warning them that the connection “provides no data security”. Take a look at the BBC News article and the information from the Security Team itself.
This proposed warning could also be added to other web browsers in future. All of this means that if your business runs a non-secure website, your visitors could see the warning and it could potentially affect the willingness of some of them to share information or make a transaction on your site.
If your site isn’t currently running entirely on SSL/HTTPS, you might want to think about making the leap to full SSL security soon.
It’s really important for us to make clear that running your site on SSL is in many cases optional and the above is only a proposal at the time of writing. But there’s lots of reasons to have your site running securely anyway. It encrypts the data flow between your customer and your site, it reassures customers that you take security seriously and since earlier this year it could help your search placement.
If you want to run your site securely, here’s what to do:
If all the pages on your site already run using SSL…
…then you’re ready for the proposed changes and your site would not show up with a non-secure warning. Ensure your certificate stays valid by renewing it on time. You can stop reading now!
If your site has some of its pages using SSL/HTTPS but some pages using non-secure HTTP…
…it can probably be converted so the entire site runs securely. This is usually a one-off process. You might be able to do this yourself. Please let us know if you’d like our help – we can provide a quote.
If your site doesn’t have any secure SSL/HTTPS pages at all…
…then you will need to buy and install an SSL security certificate for your site and have a hosting plan that will work with it. You’ll then need to convert your entire website to run securely. We can provide all of this – please let us know if you’d like some more details.