For those WordPress site owners that don’t yet have SSL certificates for their websites, time is running out.  Google has announced that beginning January 2017, any websites that do not use HTTPS risk being flagged as “not secure” in Google Chrome.  Initially, this will only apply to sites that transmit passwords or credit card details over HTTP, but Google will eventually mark all HTTP sites as non-secure.  Chrome indicates connection security with an icon in the address bar.

As per Google, “A substantial portion of web traffic has transitioned to HTTPS so far, and HTTPS usage is consistently increasing.  We recently hit a milestone with more than half of Chrome desktop page loads now served over HTTPS.  In addition, since the time we released our HTTPS report in February, 12 more of the top 100 websites have changed their serving default from HTTP to HTTPS.”

The company has said that the move will improve on the browser’s current iteration of a warning, which indicates HTTP connections with a neutral indicator.  Eventually, Google plans to mark all HTTP pages as non-secure and use the same red triangle it currently uses for broken HTTPS sites.  More information is available on the Google Security Blog.

If you haven’t already sorted out a migration plan, SSL certificate, etc., you best get onto it before the end of the year, especially if your WordPress site has an e-commerce element.

All Mshini customers benefit from free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates on their WordPress sites.  Sign up with Mshini and instantly move from an HTTP to and HTTPS site with a single click in our customer control panel.  Your site will also immediately receive all of the benefits of HTTP/2, one of which is a massive boost in speed.