Google Sends Warnings for HTTP Sites

If you’re website is using HTTP at the start of the domain name you may get a warning notice from Google, they already have begun sending out warning notices to owners that their website will be flagged as a “non secure” in Google Chrome starting in October 2017.  Their first step in the plan is to display a “Not secure” label in the address bar.

So what does this mean for you?  If your website uses a form which includes things such as a comment form, Google can show the website as not being secure if you use the Google Chrome browser.  Google will also show this warning for ALL your pages when viewed in the Incognito mode.  If your website has no forms but is the sort of site that your users might prefer to visit via Incognito, then that website will be shown as not secure.

The is all set to take place in the beginning of October 2017, with the version 63 of Google Chrome, so you still have a month or so  to implement HTTPS for your site.

Some websites will receive these notices even if they are using HTTPS,  and this is because some owners use both the HTTP and HTTPS versions of the site verified in Google Search Console.  Even if the HTTP version is correctly re-directing to the HTTPS, Google still will send a warning notice.

This is what the notice looks like:

Google Chrome’s long-term plan to mark sites with HTTP as insecure, also with the free Let’s Encrypt initiative is helping close the gap on the web’s remaining unencrypted sites.