Google has begun sending out warning emails to site owners whose sites haven’t yet been moved from HTTP to HTTPS (the secure version of HTTP). In the emails, Google has told HTTP owners that their sites will be tagged as ‘not secure’ from October 2017.
Google has been talking about the importance of HTTP for a few months, but at first their focus was primarily on websites that collect secure information such as payment details or passwords.
Now, the emails have asserted that if your site has any form – even just a simple blog subscription, contact us or comment form – Google will flag it as not secure in the Chrome browser.
Why Should You Care?
If you’re still on HTTP (and have any type of form on your website) users who visit your site from October will be told that the website or page they’re currently visiting may pose a security risk.
This, as you can imagine, isn’t going to do great things for your traffic, form completion or bounce rate.
While we all knew this day would come eventually, it hasn’t been critical for most sites until now. The takeaway from Google’s warning mails is: don’t delay – October is nearly upon us.
The good news is that it’s not that difficult to make the switch. It took our SEO expert, Naeem, all of 20 minutes to migrate our site from HTTP to HTTPS.
The process will differ slightly depending on who your hosting service is. For more information on how to go about it, click here.
Tags: google, http, https
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About Anika
Anika is our digital marketing creative and social media guru, with a passion for everything design and user experience optimisation. She's passionate about strategising new campaigns and utilising her knowledge of the psychology behind the consumer’s journey.
Outside the office she spends most of her time outdoors or trying to be the ultimate master chef.