Google Penalty for non HTTPS Sites Starts!

by | Oct 2, 2017 | Blog

Every website owner that collects emails via opt-ins or contact forms needs to be aware that Google are making significant changes to their Chrome 62 web browser with effect from this month.

If your site is not HTTPS then Chrome will show a ‘NOT SECURE’ warning from now on. This may well put off any potential clients whilst viewing your website.

 

The purpose of HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is to provide a greater security level than standard HTTP protocol for sensitive data. It adds this additional layer of security to the data in transit through a secure socket layer (SSL) or transport layer security (TLS) protocol connection.
The types of sensitive data that should be protected include:

• Log in data such as email addresses and passwords
• Registration data including names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers
• Payment information such as bank details and credit card numbers
• Customer documents
• Data entry forms

HTTPS is configured and supported by default in most web browsers and initiates a secure connection automatically if the accessed web servers request secure connection. HTTPS works in collaboration with certificate authorities that evaluates the security certificate of the accessed website.

How do you convert to HTTPS?


It’s not a difficult job and your web developer should be able to do the job for you.

If you experience difficulties or you have lost contact with your original web developer feel free to give us a call on 01452 534860 and we’ll see what we can do to help.