Starting July, Chrome will add a “Not secure” warning to visitors of sites that do not have SSL (Secure Sockets Layer).
Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. Millions of people use it to view websites and share information. For years now, there has been a big push to make sure that sites are more secure, especially for users who are sharing information. The information one shares can come via a contact form on a site, a login, email capture forms, and online shopping forms.
As a website owner, it is important to ensure a user that your site is not vulnerable to data theft. In cases where your site does not have SSL any information you enter can be picked up by a hacker while it’s being transmitted to your database.
The “Not secure” warning will be noticeable and will affect the way user interact with your site…even if you have nothing to sell. For the most part users will just bounce out of your site.
If you have SSL installed, users will not see that warning notice and all of that data will be encrypted so that hackers can not decipher what is being transmitted.
What do I need to do?
Adding SSL to your site is important to your business and takes only a few steps.
- The easiest way to set this up would be to get SSL from your current hosting company. Your host will typically have a simple way to apply the SSL to the specific domain.
- Once you have SSL installed, you will need to make sure your site is redirecting urls to https. Through .htaccess, you can add:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} your-domain\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://your-domain.com/$1 [R,L]
There are other methods that you could take, but this will cover most site owners who want to DIY it.
What if I don’t want to do DIY it?
For those who don’t, contact us for support and we’ll make sure that it is installed correctly and without issue.