Your website may not have changed recently, but Google Chrome has. The new version of Google Chrome was released this week and with it, they've updated how insecure websites are displayed in the address bar.
Secure websites are ones that are utilising an SSL certificate. This is what changes the HTTP at the start of a web address to HTTPS, and lets people know the website they are visiting is secure and can be trusted.
Google Chrome now marks any website that isn't using SSL as "Not secure" and the other web browsers will very likely follow suit in the coming months.
The address bar for websites not using HTTPS now looks like this:
Whereas a website using an SSL certificate looks like this:
Why does this matter?
People are becoming wiser when it comes to online security and you don't want to scare people off when they visit your website.
Because of this and ongoing changes by web browsers, it has never been more important to have an SSL certificate on your website.
In the future, Google is going to change the "Not secure" message to be more noticeable by making it red and even more of a warning to visitors when a site is not using SSL.
SSL certificates also benefit your website by boosting SEO, security and even how fast your website loads.
What can I do?
The solution is simple, you need to have an SSL certificate on your website.
Any web design agency (including us) should be able to install an SSL certificate and it’s not that expensive at all.
We are Webbed Feet, we take website security seriously.