You may have read recently that Google will be updating Chrome to start highlighting unsecured websites as “Not Secure” starting this July. Google is invested in a more secure web experience for everyone and is pushing web developers to secure all aspects of sites they create and manage.
If you’re the owner or webmaster of an individual site the solution is the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) cryptographic protocol. Using an SSL certificate creates a secure connection between the website and the user. The key way to know if your connection is secure is if the beginning of the URL starts with HTTPS:// instead of HTTP://. The extra S there means it is using SSL and is secure.
In modern browsers, you will see a green lock symbol with the word Secure next to it. Like this:
Or, the gray warning symbol alone if unsecured. Web browsers will soon–especially Google Chrome–show a big red warning symbol with the text “Not secure” next to it. Like this:
That’s fairly ugly and a little scary for users visiting your site.
In the past, Red Hen has only pushed using SSL encryption for business sites that include financial or personal information transactions like web stores. We weren’t too concerned over simple blogs or informational pages for websites. There wasn’t any liability associated with readers just visiting a site and it was an additional expense. SSL certificates for a single site can run about $75 per year.
Things have changed with Google’s new rules, though. Now that browsers are implementing new standards for security we recommend that all sites use an SSL certificate and incorporate the expense into their annual operating budgets. In addition to making users of your site feel secure it provides another layer of professional presentation, boosts Google search results, and keeps antivirus tools happy.
We perform daily maintenance on all sites we’re responsible for and the host that we use for most of our clients is currently offering a free standard SSL certificate for all domains. We proactively added it to all sites we manage, so if we’re your web company you should see the Secure lock in the browser URL window. This free offer may be temporary and we will inform customers of any future price increases.
Web sites are living pieces of your marketing and operational plans. They can’t be set up and forgotten because real world conditions change often. Keeping up with trends and technological advances is an important part of the process and that’s why partnering with someone like Red Hen to help stay on top of these issues is so important.