Google has made a significant update for Chrome users. It now requires websites to have an SSL certificate to be marked as secure.
This update is important for ALL websites but mainly any website that collects any sensitive data like passwords, credit card info, or any other personal data.
In this blog article, we’ll cover why it’s so important to make sure you have an SSL certificate, how to tell if a website is secure, and how you can obtain an SSL certificate.
Simply put, it’s a security certificate. When you go to a site that uses HTTPS (secure connection), that means the website uses a particular certificate to prove their identity to web browsers, like Chrome.
In other words, the website says, “I am who I say I am and here’s my official ID card to prove it!”
The purpose of SSL certificates is to help you stay safe from any threats that can infect your computer and steal information.
The reason this is so important for all websites is that without an SSL certificate, potential customers might be leaving your site fearing it may be infected…even if it’s not. In other words, if your site is marked unsecured, you will miss out on valuable traffic because people will be afraid of getting hacked.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Without an SSL certificate, potential customers might be leaving your site fearing they could be hacked – @IGVINC” quote=”Without an SSL certificate, potential customers might be leaving your site fearing they could be hacked – @IGVINC”]
In fact, Google even warns you that your information could be stolen by attackers if you proceed and recommends browsing on a secure connection only. If this sounds scary to you, think about how your visitors are going to react.
To show you what I mean, I’ve taken a screengrab from the website of an apparel company. They have not yet updated their SSL certificate. The warning message reads like this:
See how the language can scare away potential customers? People have become more savvy and sensitive to online threats. And when you consider the recent increase of online hacking, that feeling is more than likely going to intensify.
The way you can tell if a site is secure is by the green lock icon reading “Secure” next to the web address in the search bar. Unsecured is indicated with a couple of different warning symbols. Another way tell is if the web address begins with HTTPS instead of HTTP.
Here’s a chart to show what the symbols look like and mean. On the left, you see how Google Chrome previously marked a website as either secure or unsecured. The right shows you how Google Chrome’s most recent update marks a site as either secure or unsecured:
So what do those symbols really mean? Hopefully this screengrab I lifted from Google Support can help explain all that.
Here’s how a secure website will be indicated a couple of other popular browsers:
For Mac users, Safari will indicate a secure website with either a gray or green lock next to the domain name.
Similarly, Firefox will also display a lock icon to notify you of a secure connection.
Well, you could pay anywhere between $70 to over $200 from other web service platforms.
But if you’re already a WordPress Maintenance Subscriber and hosting with IGV, you get your SSL certificate for FREE. Just submit a request, and we will activate it for you.
Pretty great deal, huh? We want to provide the best service for our customers so that you can provide the best for your customers. We want to make sure that you don’t lose traffic to your website and miss out on potential business.
