Why Google Requires SSL Certificates
for Websites

Google has been pushing webmasters to make the change from non-secure web sites for years. There were hints of a small rankings boost to further incentivize the move to secure sites (https). 

Google has confirmed a date of “early July 2018” as the start date.and also disclosed how they will alert web surfers of the non-HTTPS status, or not secure website.

Sites that remain on the HTTP non-secure protocol will be flagged with a warning in the URL bar of the surfer’s browser.

The non-secure flag will be built into the release of Chrome 68, which will be ready for download in early July. Google's plan to label HTTP sites as non-secure will gradually take place based on various criteria. Since Chrome 56 started marking sites as not secure, there has been a 23% reduction in page visits with password or credit card forms. Many people look at the browser's address bar for the lock symbol and https:// to confirm that the website or page is secure. If the site isn't secure, they most likely leave which might be a contributor to the bounce rate noted in your web analytics.

Secure Browser URL

Google's continuing mission is to take the next steps to protect your data. Passwords and credit cards are not the only types of data that should be private. Any type of information that users type into websites should not be accessible to others. In version 62 of Chrome, the browser will show a “Not Secure” warning as users enter information to the website's forms. If a user sees the warning, he might abandon completion of the call-to-action.

This is a Webmaster message we recently received regarding a client's website:

This message is telling us that Google is crawling the web for sites that contain forms and making note that they are not secure. We use a Chrome extension to check if a site is safe to visit but aren't sure that an extension will be required to verify if a site is secure. Google may choose to show 'website not secure' in the search results similar to how they noted that a site was 'mobile-friendly.' Will a notation be made in search results and stop a searcher from visiting your website? We'll be watching.

A SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website. When a form is completed, the information is encrypted when sent to the server using SSL technology. Encryption is the process of scrambling data that can only be returned to a readable format via the appropriate decryption key.