Starting in December, Google Chrome will begin to start blocking mixed content. If you’ve not tightened that up yet, things on your site might start breaking.
You can read more about this update over on WP Beginner, or visit Why No Padlock to see the status of your site.
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We’ve talked a lot about SSL on this podcast, as having that secure lock is becoming increasingly important for your website even if you’re not selling products. However, a future update to Chrome will hurt you pretty badly if you’ve added SSL but not done it correctly.
In general, there are two kinds of sites. There are sites without SSL, which Google shows as “not secure” and sites with SSL, that show a padlock icon. If you have SSL on your site, but some of your content is still pulling with the old http address, it can create what’s known as “mixed content” — some of your content is secure, and some isn’t.
As of now, Google still displays all of the content, though the site won’t show the full SSL lock icon. With an update to Google Chrome coming this December, Google is going to block all mixed content on websites. That means any items on your site that aren’t secure, such as images or a chart or something, will vanish to those users. This is a bad user experience, which will likely lead to lower traffic and fewer conversions.
If you want to check your own site to be sure, the tool at whynopadlock.com can be very helpful. It will tell you what’s going on with your site, and precisely which elements aren’t secured properly. It’s typically pretty easy to resolve those issues, so now’s the time to make sure all is solid before your traffic nosedives in December because you didn’t make this correction.
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