Non HTTPS Sites To Be Acknowledged As Not Secured From July 2018, says Google. Learn Why!

by Guna Nadar - 2/13/2018 6161 Views

Having login fields, forms, and other input fields like credit card details on your HTTP website? Chrome is going to mark them as not secured.

After years of pushing for 'secure by default' web sites, Google will identify insecure sites in the Chrome browser and will mark the non-HTTPS sites as “not secure”. This is going to be in action from July 2018.

Migrate-http-to-https

The Google Chrome’s update on migration to HTTPS is intended to target both webmaster and online user by changing their performance via highlighting HTTP websites as “Not Secure”. And, this will be visible on Chrome’s both normal and incognito viewing modes.

Google had their HTTPS everywhere campaign, including hinting at small rankings boost to further incentivize the shift, and they have started indexing secure pages over unsecured pages.

Google said: “Beginning in October 2017, Chrome will show the ‘Not secure’ warning in two additional situations: when users enter data on an HTTP page, and on all HTTP pages visited in Incognito mode” and some might have received email with subject line stating “Chrome will show new security warnings on”. Below is the sample of one of those emails.

google-chrome-security-warning-detail

After viewing the Google’s statement and receiving the email some must be wondering why there was no action as mentioned. This is because the move will coincide with the release of Chrome 68.

Why Google is encouraging HTTPS migration?

Google recognizes several reasons to switch to HTTPS and one among them is:

Data sent using HTTPS is secured via Transport Layer Security protocol (TLS), which provides three key layers of protection such as Encryption, Data Integrity, and Authentication. Also there are other benefits like Google ranking boost as previously mentioned.

Google ranking signal

It’s now clear why Google is making a greater push for websites to switch to HTTPS – because it will protect their users and it will help them deliver a more secure browsing experience.

What are the problems occur during HTTPS migration?

Some of the common problems one should keep in mind while migrating to HTTPS:

Due to the failure in updating the test server to allow bots, it prevents the Google from crawling the HTTP version of the site or prevents the site crawls in general.
Both the HTTP and HTTPS version of the page showing content duplication issues.
HTTP and HTTPS showing the different versions of the page.

The common problems with HTTPS migration are due to the improper implementation of redirects, that is failed redirect and redirect chain. Be sure in checking the subpages, as well as the home page. It can be affected differently depending on how the rules are written and where they are placed. You should not only focus on whether they get you to the correct page but also need to actually look at what’s going on with these as far as the status codes and hops.

Benefits in migrating to HTTPS:

Some all known common but impactful benefits in migrating your site to HTTPS are:

Your website gains Authority and Trust.
HTTPS defends your site from malware and attack.
The exchanged data is encrypted to keep it secure.
Data cannot be modified or corrupted during transfer without being detected – especially the online payments or transactions that you make through your website are secured.
Minimizes the Hacks of your website, server or network.

How SubmitInMe help you with upgrading your website to HTTPS?

Our team of experts performs the following tasks in the migration to https://

Install SSL Certificate – We Purchase (included in the rate- no extra fee) the SSL certificate and install it on your webserver.
Update htaccess, webconfig files for forced https using 301
Update all 301 redirects configured earlier.
Update links in 404 pages and html sitemaps
Replace all absolute links with https for images, canonicals, files, schema, stylesheets, opengraph, jquery, scripts, webfonts, and plugins
Verify the https version of website in GSC (Google Search Console) for both www & non www versions
Update GSC by creating a new XML sitemap with https version
Robots.txt update
Set preferred domain to https version in GSC
Download disavow file from http version and upload to https version is applicable.
Test with “Fetch as Google” and for “200 OK” server response

Final Statement:

Chrome’s new interface will continue to move the web towards a secure HTTPS web by default by helping the users to understand that all non HTTPS sites are not secure. Since HTTPS is easier and cheaper than ever before, it helps in unlocking both performance improvements and powerful new features that are too sensitive for HTTP.

Chrome is dedicated to making it as easy as possible to set up HTTPS. To migrate the sites to HTTPS in the latest Node CLI version of Lighthouse- an automated tool for improving web pages, the Mixed content audits are now available to help developers. The new audit in Lighthouse helps developers find which resources a site loads using HTTP and which of those are ready to be upgraded to HTTPS simply by changing the sub resource reference to the HTTPS version.

Category :

SEO News

Tags :

http to https migration,Google update

About Guna Nadar

Brief Info about Guna Nadar +

I mostly write technical aspects and not much into creative writing. For the past decade I worked along with top notch SEO & Internet Marketing professionals which naturally lured me into the world of Search Engines. When I am not writing I read from comics to philosophy.Antiques, Fishing, hunting are my passions. Currently I am working on Google Penalty protection and .... more info about the author