We got the below email from Google last night and I am sure many of our customers will be asking about what this means for them and what they need to do.
What does this message mean?
Google and several other major internet companies (such as Mozilla the makers of Firefox) are pushing for better security to be used on websites.
This new warning is part of this new push. Google wants any website owner that has a web form (so just about every website) to make sure that the website or at the least the pages with the forms loading over https.
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The ‘S’ at the end of HTTPS stands for ‘Secure’. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted.
What actions do you need/should take?
You need two things to make your website load over https.
- SSL cert. – currently the cost for a ssl cert is €165 pa but because of this change we are offering new ssl cert setups at €99 once you quote the code – ChromeSecurity. This will get you your own unique 256 bit encryption SSL. iSeek is also working to offer you free shared ssl certs and we hope to launch this product later this year.
- Modify your website to load over https – If your site uses a cms such as WordPress then changes need to be made to the configuration to load all pages over ssl – the amount of time for this task can vary but an average is 2 hours of web development work.
Please contact us if you are interested in going ahead with this?
What if you do nothing?
Come October 2017 Google will update chrome and when a visitor using the new version of the browser visits your website and encounters a form on it, visitors will see a NOT SECURE message in the browser.
So ask yourself if you were on a web page looking to make an enquiry about a product or service and were asked to fill out the enquiry form but a not secure warning was displayed would you proceed?
Getting visitors to your website is hard work. Getting those visitors to browse your site is hard work and then getting some of those visitors to fill out a product enquiry form is hard work so you really want to make it as easy and positive an experience as possible.
iSeek considers it vital for our customers to address this issue before October 2017.
Contact iSeek today and we can review your website and advise what action you need to take
