![\"\"](\"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/http_warning-1024x512.png\")
You might ask yourself questions like \u201cwhat does \u2018not\nsecure\u2019 website mean?\u201d or \u201cwhat information isn\u2019t secure?\u201d These are both valid\nquestions and something that you should be aware of before entering a website\nthat has the dreaded warning in the search bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are some things you have to know when it comes to\nwebsites that aren\u2019t secure:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HTTP websites are not secure<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol, is placed at the\nfront end of website URLs in order to display a website. It\u2019s a protocol used\nby the World Wide Web in order to fetch HTML documents or in short, display web\npages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, website URLs that are preceded by HTTP are\nnot secure. This means that your login info, or your personal information like\ncredit card numbers, could be stolen, read, or modified by hackers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HTTPS websites are secure<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, website URLs that are preceded by HTTPS are<\/em>\nsecure. This means that when you a see a website URL starting with HTTPS, you\nwon\u2019t get a \u201cnot secure\u201d warning, and you don\u2019t have to worry about the\npossibility of hackers stealing your personal information that you use on the\nwebsite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Popular websites like Google.com and Amazon.com use HTTPS\nto show users that they are safe when browsing and making online purchases on their websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does HTTPS\nprovide?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n HTTPS provides encryption, which means nobody can track or\nsteal your personal information, integrity, which means that data can\u2019t and\nwon\u2019t be corrupted during transfer, and authentication, which validates that\nwebsites are communicating correctly with the right website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google has always advocated for HTTPS sites as opposed to\nHTTP sites, but in 2018, they made that even clearer. Starting in July 2018,\nthe search engine started providing users with the \u201cnot secure\u201d marker in the\nsearch bar potentially decreasing site\nvisitors to insecure sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When users see a \u201cnot secure\u201d warning, they may think that\nit\u2019s the first sign of a computer virus or malware. That\u2019s one thing you don\u2019t\nhave to worry about!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We mentioned before, the \u201cnot secure\u201d warning simply means\nthat your information is not secure on that website, and that you should\nrefrain from entering any personal information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google\u2019s main job as a search engine is to provide users\nwith the results that most closely fit their search query. The results that\nGoogle provides for any given search is based on tons of factors including\nkeyword targeting, domain authority of the website, number of backlinks, and\nthe list goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Google is also known to use website\nsecurity as a ranking factor means if you own a website that doesn\u2019t\nutilize HTTPS, you may see your site rankings get worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google wants to provide search results that not only fit a\nuser\u2019s search query, but also provides them with a secure experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adopting HTTPS is far from difficult, so check out this\nfive-step process to secure your website for site visitors and customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to make your HTTP site secure, you\u2019ll need to\ninstall an SSL certificate on your website. When you install an SSL\ncertificate, a few exchanges take place, which provide a secure version of your\nwebsite to your site visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want both your internal and external site links to\ncontinue to operate effectively, you\u2019ll want to ensure that you change them all\nto https as well. This might sound tedious, but it\u2019s crucial to ensure that\nHTTPS helps your website instead of hurting it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After installing your SSL certificate and ensuring that\nyour site links use HTTPS, you\u2019ll want to verify both the HTTP and HTTPS\nversion of your site in Google Search Console.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In doing so, you\u2019ll also want to be sure that your\npreferred domain is set to the HTTPS version. This will ensure that site\nvisitors are served the secure version of your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you mention your website on any third-party sites that\nyou have control over, you\u2019ll want to be sure that you change mentions of HTTP\nto HTTPS. You\u2019ll also want to create 301 redirects on your own website to make\nsure your HTTP URLs reference the HTTPS version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, you\u2019ll want to update your XML sitemap to reference\nthe HTTPS versions of your site pages. Your sitemap acts as a road map for site\nvisitors and Google alike to help them easily navigate your website. To ensure\nthat Google re-crawls and indexes your website with new links, you\u2019ll want to\nsubmit you\u2019re updated <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Running a secure website is one of the most important elements to consider for your online presence. Whether you\u2019ve had a website for a long time, or you\u2019ve just created one, site security is extremely important especially for eCommerce websites. Not only that, but any site that requires or stores any kind of visitor information, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,17,9],"tags":[61,62,63,64],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-networking","category-technology","category-website","tag-http","tag-https","tag-secure","tag-ssl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cNot secure\u201d doesn\u2019t mean your computer has virus<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Websites that don\u2019t utilize HTTPS could rank lower in\nresults<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
My website is not secure, how can I fix it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Install Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
2. Ensure that internal and external links use HTTPS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
3. Verify your website in Google Search Console<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
4. Ensure that HTTP URLs are redirected<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
5. Update XML sitemap<\/h4>\n\n\n\n