Posted on Jul 23, 2018

Will Google’s Latest Update Affect Your Website and Business?

This month, Google is updating their Chrome web browser to explicitly notify visitors when they’ve landed on a website that is not secure. That means all sites without an SSL will be flagged as “not secure”! It’s likely  that other web browsers will follow their lead in order to create a safer online environment.

As the necessity for online security increases, these kinds of changes could have a negative impact on your business if you don’t take action to secure your site.

There’s more to worry about than a loss of customer confidence if a website marked as not secure. Google will also prioritize sites that encrypt their data to the top of the search engine results page. That means sites that are not secure could move lower down the search page, impacting the  number of site visits coming from search.

There are steps you can take to avoid being negatively impacted by Google’s changes, and to make sure your website traffic is secure. Maintaining an up-to-date SSL certificate is the first step. To minimize the impact of this, iPage is offering free basic SSL to our customers.

What the Google update means for your business

Once Google’s updated web browser Chrome 68 is released in July, users will know if a website they visit is not encrypting traffic because the URL will be flagged with a ‘Not Secure’ message, as shown below.

If customers see the ‘Not Secure’ warning, they may not enter your site at all. And if they do, may be less likely provide any personal or payment information, or even sign up for an email list. Another sign of security is the HTTPS at the start of a URL with data encryption, as opposed to HTTP which indicates a website is not secure. When website traffic is secure, here’s what the url will look like.

The volume of traffic to your website could also be impacted as customers are less likely to even find your website once Google makes the change to their browser. If your URL does not have the HTTPS, Google could rank your website lower on the search results page meaning fewer visitors and fewer sales.

Make your website secure with an SSL Certificate  

A Secure Socket Layer (SSL), by definition, is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. A web server stores the files that make up a website and delivers the webpages to the internet. A web browser is what individuals use to locate and connect with web pages via their computer, phone, or other device.

To put in simple terms, a web server and web browser work as a team to connect your customer’s computer to your company’s website. An SSL Certificate makes it harder for bad actors to access the information that passes between the browser and server. This means your customers can be confident that any personal information they provide is safely delivered and the information they receive from the website is not tampered with.

Why is encryption important?

Without an SSL Certificate encrypting the data that passes between your business and your customers, both parties could be at risk. Since smaller companies are unlikely to have a full team working on site security, they are more vulnerable to attacks from bad actors.

A simple SSL Certificate can help to protect your business by:

  • Authenticating – Validates that customers are talking to your servers and not someone pretending to be you.
  • Retaining data integrity – Keeps bad actors from modifying the communications between your customers computer and your servers, or even injecting unwanted content into blog posts.
  • Encrypting data – Keeps the data passing between you and your customers private so the same bad actors can’t develop a profile about you or your customers.
  • Boosting SEO rank – Google has started to give a slight boost in the ranking of websites that use an SSL Certificate..

What a simple SSL Certificate doesn’t do:

  • Detect and remove malware
  • Detect and remove website security vulnerabilities
  • Manage search engine ranking & reputation
  • Provide a web application firewall
  • Protect website against DDos attacks

Encrypt your website traffic now to make the internet a better place  

An encrypted internet is a safer internet, for everyone. This helps keep the internet a place where ideas can flow freely, but it also helps to grow your business, by helping your customers trust you.

In order to help your business and your customers, iPage.com is offering free basic SSL to our customers. If you’re an iPage customer, watch your inbox for more details on how to enable the SSL Certificate for your account.

Keep your customers and your business safe and secure

It’s important to know the businesses you are talking with online are the real deal and not an impersonation. It helps to have some reassurance that the information you share online is safe. An SSL Certificate helps to keep the data passing between your customers and your business secure, and after Google releases Chrome 68 in July, an encrypted site becomes even more important.  

Make sure your website visitors can trust your business, can sign up for your email list, and can shop online with confidence. Show that your business cares about security, and cares about customers with an SSL Certificate.

Header image Pixabay

 

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