A deadline has been set by Google for HTTPS and Warns Developers to Upgrade

Google has announced a due date of July 2018 as the date for when Chrome will start explicitly warning users if a site is not safe with HTTPS certificate. As Chrome is used more than 50% of the internet browser worldwide, this change can have a significant impact on the developers, so get your client website from http to https. A cautioning may influence how to secure clients feel and may make a few visitors leave a site, which will adversely be affecting a sites bounce rate, advertising impressions, affiliate clicks, and E-Commerce sales.

How are they going to warn users of insecure pages?

A prominent warning will be shown in Chrome’s address bar (Omnibox), indicating that an insecure website by saying it is “Not secure.” This warning will show for all the HTTP websites. Google's declaration did not expressly address whether mixed secure/unreliable site pages will trigger the warning. But it is safe to assume that these sorts of pages that show a mix of secure and insecure content will trigger a warning. As indicated by Google, Chrome's Lighthouse web page auditing tool can recognize what web page elements are setting off a mixed content warning.

Worldwide Impact of Chrome HTTPS Security Warning

This change will be felt more keenly in some countries than in others. But even in countries where the usage of Chrome is low, still have a total of 39% of the internet browsers. The need to update to HTTPS is especially important in regions like South America where the Chrome usage is high as 74.04% and in Israel, where 66.77% on the internet usage happens through Chrome.

Should You Upgrade to HTTPS?

Google’s Lighthouse Developer Recommendations page recommends Let’s Encrypt for those who are running their own servers as a low-cost alternative and even hosting providers are already providing free HTTPS certificates as well as low-cost certificates also. Among the considerations for moving to HTTPS are the mixed content issues, where a safe web page connects to a website page resource, for example, JavaScript or CSS utilizing an insecure URL. These are issues that a site publisher needs to consider the possibility of losing traffic and income. NOTE: You might experience temporary shifts in website rankings as Google crawls the HTTPS version of your website. But it will stabilize eventually, and Google will value the site more highly because of the security aspect. A secured website is part of the Google algorithm or ranking. So ultimately you would have to consider doing that at some point. This change is applicable to all the E-Commerce sites as well. The clock is ticking as the deadline is approaching, July 2018.

Tags: bounce rate, google ranking, http, https, not-secure,