{"id":620324,"date":"2018-04-10T14:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/?p=620324"},"modified":"2021-07-29T10:18:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T08:18:42","slug":"googles-enforcing-https-website-ready-chrome-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/blog\/googles-enforcing-https-website-ready-chrome-68\/","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s Enforcing HTTPS – Is Your Website Ready for Chrome 68?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is your website safe from hackers? If not, anyone visiting your website will soon know.<\/p>\n

On February 2018, Google announced<\/a> that from July 2018 when Chrome 68 is released, every website that is not running HTTPS will be labeled as \u201cnot secure\u201d in the address bar.<\/p>\n

What does this mean? Well, anyone attempting to access a website without HTTPS will receive a warning that the site isn\u2019t safe.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example from Google of what the warning will look like in browsers:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Image: Google<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Should I Care About HTTPS Warnings?<\/h2>\n

In a word: yes.<\/p>\n

According to Cloudflare<\/a>, over half<\/em> of web visitors will see these warnings. That\u2019s 50% of your web traffic.<\/p>\n

So if your website is not integrated with HTTPS, your customers will see that your site is vulnerable to cyber attacks and any personal information they enter into your site isn\u2019t secure and might decide to go elsewhere for your product or services.<\/p>\n

Why Is Google Forcing HTTPS on Site Owners?<\/h2>\n

HTTPS is the safer version of the HTTP protocol<\/a>, which enables web users to connect to websites.<\/p>\n

Secure connections are an important step in protecting users from a type of cyber attack called content injection, or content spoofing<\/a>. Content spoofing is when a hacker creates a fake website and passes it off as if it were legitimate. The intent is, typically, to defraud victims via phishing<\/a>. Sometimes, though, the purpose is simply to misrepresent an organization or person.<\/p>\n

Content spoofing often works because it exploits an established trust relationship between a user and organization or user, whether it\u2019s a famous company or a celebrity.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just hackers \u2013 disgruntled employees, angry customers, and anyone else who wants to hurt a company or person could carry out a content spoofing attack, sharing false information and messages with customers and driving them to their competition.<\/p>\n

Common forms of content injection include eavesdropping, data modification and man-in-the-middle attacks. Hackers can also perform SEO injections, spreading additional false messages through search engine spiders that index and craft URLs.<\/p>\n

With HTTPS, Google hopes to make this kind of malicious attack a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

How Does Google Know HTTPS Works?<\/h2>\n

Because security is Google\u2019s middle name. Plus, it\u2019s been making gradual steps towards pushing users \u2013 and the world \u2013 towards HTTPS.<\/p>\n

Google commissioned security engineering firms X41 D-Sec GmbH and Cure53 to examine the relative security strengths of the three most popular enterprise browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE).<\/p>\n

The two studies<\/a> found that in 2017, Google Chrome was the most secure browser on the web due in large part to its high rates of detecting suspicious websites and fast vulnerability patching.<\/p>\n

Also, Google has been playing with HTTPS for years<\/a>. The company started testing in 2014, examining which websites were secure and used connections that were encrypted in its search engine algorithm.<\/p>\n

The tests were a rousing success<\/a> and in response, the search giant began using HTTPS as a ranking signal.<\/p>\n

Though it was only a slight change, HTTPS impacted less than 1% of global searches, and factors like high-quality content still mattered a great deal more.<\/p>\n

Still, back then Google saw the potential and important of HTTPS and wanted to see it become more fully realized.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Google had to say about the future of HTTPS<\/a> on its security blog in 2014:<\/p>\n

\u201c… over time, we may decide to strengthen it (HTTPS), because we\u2019d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year later, Google released another update on its security blog, announcing a slight adjustment in its indexing system. The plan was to crawl just as many, if not more, HTTPS over HTTP pages even when HTTPS web pages were not linked to any other websites.<\/p>\n

This meant Google had decided it was going to start playing favorites. In other words,\u00a0goodbye HTTP. HTTPS was going to get a leg-up in search engine ranking and indexing simply because it was HTTPS and not for any of the usual ranking requirements.<\/p>\n

And if two URLs with the same domain and the same content possessed different protocol schemes<\/a>, Google would index the HTTPS URL with these rules in mind:<\/p>\n