Is Your Website Secure?

It’s time to secure your website.

In January, Google introduced a new feature to Chrome to highlight the security of a website.  This feature label’s websites “Secure” or  “Not Secure”.

You’ll see the new message added as a prefix to the domain.  So if your website is secure, then you’ll see something like this.

If it isn’t, then you’ll see  “Not Secure”  or an      instead.

Why is this happening

Google is working towards making the Web a more secure place. The new feature is aimed at encouraging businesses to switch the websites from HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure).  If you haven’t realised it yet (and I’ve given you a big hint); HTTPS is a secure way of doing things.

In simple terms, your website talks to browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Explorer etc. HTTPS is a secure way of handling the transfer of data between a website and a browser. HTTPS encrypts the data so it can’t be read. (If you want something more technical, we’re not going to bore you with it here – just click on the links for more technical details).

Is HTTPS important?

In one word Yes. And here’s an example that illustrates this.

If your website is not secure and is set up using HTTP, then the communication between Chrome and your website can be seen as normal text. Let’s say you have a website that your customers login to with a username and password; that username and password is transferred between the browser and the website as normal text, so it can be easily read by anyone trying steal it.

If you are using HTTPS, the username and password is encrypted, which keeps the information private and prevents anyone from being able to view it or steal it.

Lots of websites already  know about the protection benefits that using HTTPS offers, its already  in wide spread use, particularly by ecommerce , finance companies and banks. Googles reports that 68% of pages loaded on Chrome are via HTTPS.  (Jan 2017)

Who Needs HTTPS ?

If you

• sell anything on your website
• allow your customers to open an account on your website
• take any payments on your website

Then you really should already be using HTTPS.  If not we would strongly recommend that you do so.

If your website is a brochure site – one that just explains what your business does;  it is not as important or urgent, however as more and more websites start to use it, this may impact on the people viewing your website. Google’s Transparency Report (Jan 2017) shows that people are spend more time on HTTPS sites compared with HTTP sites.

You also need to be aware that Google have been using HTTPS as a ranking signal for SEO for over two years and the importance that it gives to it is on the rise. So if you as part of your SEO strategy, you should switch to HTTPS.

How To Set Up HTTPS.

We’re basically recommending that all websites should be using HTTPS.

So what do you need to do?

1: Put it on your to do list right now (just so that you don’t forget).

2: Purchase a SSL Certificate from a Certificate Authority.

2: Activate and install the certificate on your website

3: Update your website to use HTTPS

4: Update Google tools to recognise HTTPS version.

If you have someone who manages your website, they may be able to help you with this.  If you don’t, feel free to contact us at Khari Interactive .