The upcoming year is the year for making the web safer. It is now considered a best practice for ALL websites to be secure, not simply those that handle sensitive, personal information.
What does HTTPS mean? A website that is protected with an SSL (secure socket layer) certificate will display the “https” domain name prefix rather than “http”.
Implementing an SSL certificate must be a priority for several reasons:
- It will go a long way towards protecting your site visitors, as well as your site platform and content.
- Using HTTPS is now a requirement for many new browser features, such as geolocation and device orientation.
- Effective January, 2017, Google is leading the way in flagging websites that don’t use the HTTPS protocol. For more information on Google’s approach, read this article.
- Ignoring this best practice may negatively affect your site’s SEO.