Site shown as “Not Secure”

Google has a feature on their Chrome browser that actively alerts users that a site is not secure when any type of data is entered into a site that does not have a “secure” or encrypted connection. Here’s an example of how that error message may look:

Why am I seeing this?

If you are seeing this on your site, it means that some portion of the content being loaded is coming over without encryption. If any party were to intercept a connection between your site and a visitor, they could see the data being passed back and forth.

Is this a new thing?

Over the past decade, more and more sites have begun implementing SSL certificates on their site to secure information going to and from their site. Think of SSL like a secret decoder pen for your website where everything is being encoded and decoded on the fly. When put in place, your site and your visitors are effectively speaking a secret language.  If anybody tries to snoop in, they won’t understand what’s going on. This has been great for securing websites running e-commerce or collecting form data from users.

Recently, there has been a  push from companies like Google to get every site encrypted with an SSL certificate to protect your privacy and create a more safe and secure web experience for everyone.

What should I do to fix it?

Here’s a helpful checklist to get your connection secure:

Need help?

If you have any questions our Happiness Engineers are here to help!