Google’s HTTPS Update & What it Means for Your Website

Google is making a major move toward making the web more secure. As of July 2018, all non-HTTPS sites are marked as “not secure”.

What kinds of websites will be affected?

Websites that are not HTTPS and do not have an SSL certificate will be affected by Google’s update. Having an SSL certificate for your website is a critical step you can take to establish trust with your patients. The usage of SSL technology ensures that all data transmitted between the web server and browser remains encrypted. Sites marked as “Not secure” could experience lower search engine rankings and visitor counts.

Does this warning appear on all browsers?

The warning will first appear on the Chrome browser; it’s important to note that 44.5% of internet users use Chrome, making it the most popular browser. That’s a lot of potential patients that could be turned away by the “not secure” warning. Other major browsers – Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple Safari – are said to follow shortly after Google’s update in July with their own “Not secure” warning notifications. 

Does my site need to be updated?

For our advertising service we build all of our landing pages which have HTTPS built in and are SSL compliant.

We highly recommend you contact your hosting provider and make sure that your practice website is also HTTPS and SSL compliant to prevent any negative impacts to the user experience and SEO due to Google’s update.

Why is Google making this change?

We’re constantly providing our personal information through different internet sites, whether we’re filling out a form to receive a newsletter or to make a purchase. Google’s goal is to keep users safer by warning us when our data is not secure.