It’s time to make your website secure (HTTPS:) or you’ll likely lose business due to Google’s latest Chrome browser warnings

If you collect any information via online forms on your website Google will now highlight your web pages as Not Secure in its Chrome web browser. This warning will likely keep many people from filling out your forms which may greatly reduce your conversion rate.

Google’s Warning in Chrome when a web page
collects any information and is not secure (HTTPS:)

Google wants the web to be secure and they have been recommending that all web sites be updated to the HTTPS protocol for a couple years now. The “S” in HTTPS signifies the secure version of HTTP. HTTPS uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates that have been validated by one of the organizations authorized to issue them. When an SSL certificate is implemented on a website data is encrypted as it travels between a user’s browser and the server and it can’t be intercepted by other parties.

Last January Google began marking web pages that collected passwords or credit card information as not secure. Now, as of October 2017, Google has begun marking any page that collects data as “Not secure” in its Chrome browser (This update may not be completely implemented as of this post). The Chrome browser is used by over 50% of desktop users.

Google will continue to ratchet up the warnings in time, likely making the Not Secure warning stand out even more. So it’s time to make a plan to move to HTTPS, especially if you collect any data on your web pages. Check with your web hosting company or web developer to see if they can handle the migration for you.

Resources