Starting in July 2018 Google Chrome web browser will indicate that a website is not secured using SSL in a much more visible manner. This means it will be much more apparent to your customers.
This is a move by Google to further promote the use of SSL. All web browsers show the security status of the website and will likely follow Google’s lead on it in the future.
Up until now, we have suggested using SSL only when your website had e-commerce or collected sensitive user information. We are now suggesting that all of our customers migrate to SSL before July 1st, 2018.
What is SSL?
Without SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) your website address starts with HTTP. With it, your website starts with HTTPS. From the outside, that’s the only major difference. But, behind the scenes it encrypts all of your website traffic. This has always been important for e-commerce and other websites that collect and/or store customer data.
The changes we need to make happen only on the web server. So, there’s nothing on your side that changes. Anywhere you have your website printed is still valid. We will set it up so if someone has an old link, or they just type it in, the website defaults to the HTTPS version.
How much will it cost?
We are charging only for the time it takes us in setting it up for your website(s). So, estimated cost is $100-$200 depending on where you are hosted since it takes more work on certain hosts.
In the past, SSL certificates were only available for a price. Recently though, free options have become available. We will use a free SSL option for you unless you request otherwise. The difference is that the free SSL option is a shared solution, where several websites on the same web server share the same certificate. The pay-for version lets you own your own certificate, so only your name appears on the certificate details. Both are legitimate solutions that will display a “secure” status in the browser.
For more information, you can read this Google Blog post from February 2018: https://security.googleblog.com/2018/02/a-secure-web-is-here-to-stay.html
Please contact us if you have any questions or you’d like us to migrate your website to SSL.
