According to Google, over 50% of all desktop pages loaded on the internet are HTTPS pages and is continuing to grow. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. You’ll notice that if you visit a website, HTTPS pages are identified by the secure symbol next to the URL.
These pages are secure and are safe to enter personal details such as passwords, credit card information, and other sensitive details.
Sites that are not HTTPS are identified by this small warning in Google Chrome.
Does my site need to be HTTPS?
Once the latest version of Google Chrome (Chrome 56) is released this month, they are updating the warning for non-HTTPS pages. If your web page collects sensitive information such as credit card details and passwords, then this will be flagged to a user. If this is the case, then you should look at getting updated to HTTPS either site wide or on any checkout and login pages.
As people become more aware of their online security and threats of hacking, this update is likely to have a significant effect, especially on the conversion rates of websites that have unsecure checkout processes.
You can see in the screenshot below(taken from the Google Security blog) how these pages are going to be treated.
As you can see, the warning will now appear as ‘Not Secure’ in the address bar of the website rather than just a small information button. In an attempt to make the web safer, Google is going to maintain a focus on driving websites to become HTTPS and ultimately, you’ll start to see non-secure pages being flagged – as displayed below.
Changing your website to HTTPS is becoming continually cheaper and easier than before, which means there is little reason not to implement this sooner rather than later. Not only are they safer and more trustworthy for your customers, but HTTPS pages can also load much quicker than a standard HTTP page. You can see how much quicker using this HTTP v HTTPS tool.
If you need any assistance in migrating your site to HTTPS and would like to make sure you are not going to harm your SEO efforts, speak to our technical SEO team or call us on 0116 254 7224 and see how we can help.
