I created a website for a company and the manager contacted me some weeks after saying people are having difficulties in accessing the site.
Quickly, i ran a check on the website and to my dismay, it was all up and working fine. I requested he check it from his end. He also confirmed nothing was wrong. Couple of days later, he contacted me for the issue, and i asked him to send me a screenshot.
I nearly broke a sweat until i found it;s just a mere protocol issue. He sent his website link typed to someone on Whatsapp messenger. Unknown the him, Whatsapp and many other messengers automatically use the https protocol which you don’t specify. so he typed the site as e.g mysite.com and while the reciepient clicks, it takes them to https://mysite.com which a secure protocol which wasn’t enable on the site.
Now, this is the jerk. Google itself is taking secure connections serious and we know sooner or later it will start to influence SEO greatly as it’s already doing so gradually.
All communications sent over regular HTTP connections are in ‘plain text’ and can be read by any hacker that manages to break into the connection between your browser and the website. This presents a clear danger if the ‘communication’ is on an order form and includes your credit card details or social security number. With a HTTPS connection, all communications are securely encrypted. This means that even if somebody managed to break into the connection, they would not be able decrypt any of the data which passes between you and the website.
The major benefits of a HTTPS certificate are:
– Customer information, like credit card numbers, is encrypted and cannot be intercepted
– Visitors can verify you are a registered business and that you own the domain
– Customers are more likely to trust and complete purchases from sites that use HTTPS