Why Full SSL Encrypted Websites are now essential in 2018

Are you a website owner? If so open your web browser (Chrome, Safari etc) and type yourdomain.com into your web browser (where you obviously replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name). Does your website automatically redirect to the ‘secure’ HTTPS version of your website and is there a little padlock in your web browser as shown below.

If you see a padlock and HTTPS then you can stop reading now!

If you do not see a padlock and secure HTTPS link when you type your domain name into your web browser then you have a problem that you need to address before Chrome Changes to its latest version in a couple of months time. What will happen in a couple of months is every page on your non-HTTPS encrypted website will show as ‘Not Secure’ in your address bar whether that page collects data or not. This may cause your visitors to lose trust in your website. Another reason why this is important is because GDPR the General Data Protection Regulations in Article 32 states that Encryption of Personal Data is important if you are processing such data. Therefore after 25 May 2018 if you are collecting or processing personal data you may be in breach of GDPR Article 32 if you do not have an SSL Encrypted website.

Here are some tips and questions on how to get ‘Full SSL Encryption’ on your website:

Get an SSL Certificate (Free from us for sites hosted with us)
With us an SSL from Let’s Encrypt certification authority is free of charge. We do sell other certificates such as Comodo Essential SSLs or Comodo EV SSLs but for most cases the free SSL provided by Let’s Encrypt will work perfectly. Your website likely already has an SSL installed on it if you host it with us and you can check that here: https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html on this third party website. If you do need a paid SSL such as one from Comodo reach out to our sales team and we can assist.

I have an SSL but it is showing as Not Secure
This is likely because there is insecure content on your website. You may have a hyperlink referencing a HTTP link instead of an HTTPS link. Even one insecure link will result in your website showing as insecure even if you have an SSL certificate installed. This website: https://www.whynopadlock.com/ is the ideal place to start as it will show you exactly what parts of your website is coded to have HTTP insecure links and you can either fix these yourself, ask your web developer or ask us for assistance

Set up a redirect to automatically redirect to HTTPS from HTTP
You do this in your website .htaccess file and we can do this for you if you pop a support ticket in.

Talk to your Web Developer
If you have a Web Developer then we recommend you speak to them to ensure your website is fully SSL encrypted. If you do not have a developer then speak to us and we can assist you for a small additional fee in the majority of cases.

WordPress Website – Do the Work Yourself for free.
If you use WordPress then you could look at installing a plugin such as the ‘Really Simple SSL’ plugin and activating it on your website while logged into the WordPress Dashboard. This plugin will do all the hard work for you and as long as you have an SSL installed your website will be fully SSL Secured once you activate the plugin in most cases.

Need Help or Advice?
Open a support ticket and our team will be glad to help. We strongly recommend you act NOW to get the fastest service from us if you need help with this. The reason is the moment Chrome updates we anticipate a lot of clients putting support tickets in as non SSL encrypted websites will ALL display as ‘Not Secure’ on that day and we likely will be very busy. Therefore we recommend you talk to us today.