HTTPS Is Not Just For Banks – It’s For You

Hey there!

Out of the blue, one of my students asked me, “Why do you insist on adding the S to the HTTP at the beginning of your web address (https://vo2gogo.com)? It’s really annoying when I see that! I don’t want to have to remember to type an extra letter just to get to a site!”

There’s much to unpack there, but she has a valid question: why make your site secure?

I’ll tell you why: because if you don’t, Google will punish you in several ways. And I love them for doing it.

Here’s why.

PS: if your hosting service wants to charge you for making your sites secure, or for the required certificate you need to install, use the hosting service I use, Dreamhost. They charge no additional fees at all for what is now a necessity: https://vo2gogo.com/get-dreamhost.


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Hope this helps!

David

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hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and I got an email today and I wanted to
make a video for this because I got the
email today and it was a little bit
amusing but a little bit useful so
useful and amusing together awesome so
my client writes me and she says why do
you insist why do all these people on
the web insist on confusing us with an S
at the end of HTTP shouldn’t just be
HTTP colon slash slash why the S are you
like special is that what the S stands
for it’s annoying why do you do that and
I there’s a lot to unpack there about
how she feels about technology but she
has a valid question why is my site
labeled that way and what does it mean
well the S stands for secure because I
handle money on my site I ask people to
pay for me teaching them how to do stuff
or they buy products from me and I have
e-commerce there even though it goes
mostly to PayPal you want to have your
site be secure and I’ll get into what
that’s all about but here’s the thing I
have to do that and so does everybody
else and for a very very good reason
it’s tough enough to be safe on the
Internet and whether your site handles
money or it doesn’t handle money
handling transactions electronic
transactions you still want the people
coming to your site knowing that you are
who you say you are and they’re going to
where they think they’re going to and
that the data that they are sending back
and forth between themselves and your
site is not being grabbed by some
disinterested third party nefarious
third party that’s what secure layer
encryption does or secure sites do and
it’s not just a bonus or a nice thing to
do it’s so important that Google will
punish you if you don’t it’s very rare
for me to see a site these days that is
an HTTP I just interviewed someone and I
asked her why her site was an HTTPS and
it turns out because
she had created the site back in 2011 or
2012 and hadn’t done much on it since
and hadn’t changed it happened to me
with a couple of sites that I created a
long time ago and hadn’t really done
much with but any new site should be set
up to be secure so what the S stands for
is SSL Secure Sockets Layer it means
secure and what that means is your site
is sending data and receiving data that
is encrypted it used to be you’d only
see banks and stores you know maybe
credit card companies with the HTTPS or
PayPal
that was back way back in the day this
is like in the single-digit 2000s but
Google made the decision and Google
really is the big dog on the block so if
you want to play the game you got to
play the game Google’s way Google made
the decision back in 2013 I think it was
the group within Google that was
responsible for Chrome which is their
browser they came to the conclusion that
there was enough shenanigans going on on
the web that secure websites could fix
that there wasn’t really any good reason
left not to be a secure site it used to
be a pain in the butt to get the
certificate that you needed to be a
secure site it’s not anymore it used to
be a pain in the butt to set up the fact
that you were HTTP had to go through all
kinds of like you know very techie
imaginations to get there today when I
create a new website on my ISP which is
DreamHost by the way I click one check
box to say HTTP and in fact they’re
threatening to change the forum when you
create a new website to being don’t be
HTTP in other words you know check this
box if you don’t want it to be HTTPS and
eventually they’ll take the box away
because we’re all moving in that
direction and the getting of that
certificate that was so difficult and
you actually had to wait awhile to get
it is now pushing a button it’s that
easy here’s the reason why you need to
do that
because if you don’t Google will shame
you right you’ve been to sites where you
go and instead of seeing the site itself
you see some sort of animal that Google
puts up there I can’t remember quite
what it is because I haven’t seen it in
a while but it says you’re not secure go
back to where you came from this could
be this could be dangerous right
they are shaming sites that have not
gone secure and that that started
happening in 2017 they started calling
out sites that weren’t secure
now what they’re doing is they’re adding
to that shame the hiding of you in the
search results so if somebody searched
for example for getting started in
voiceover or voiceover training or
whatever and my site wasn’t secure it
wasn’t HTTPS I wouldn’t show up in the
first hundred pages of the site because
there’s so many sites that are and I
feel for people that are not very tech
aware of these things they’ve either
built the built their websites
themselves out of you know using a kit
or something and they’ve never changed
it they’re old they are not aware that
they’re not showing up in the search
results anymore so they decided to set
up the rule in 2013 that they were no
longer going to tolerate Google did sick
nuns non secure sites and so the
question is what about all these sites
that already are that way that already
have been built but aren’t secure how do
you make them secure well that’s easy
too
ISPs make it easy you call up DreamHost
or you call up you know GoDaddy or
whoever you want GoDaddy sites are all
secure to begin with they they jumped on
board with everything but then the
question is well what if somebody has
your address already like this client of
mine apparently had in her list of web
sites HTTP colon slash slash VOD gogo
calm well the good news there is you can
ask your ISP to set up what’s called a
forwarding rule where no matter what
somebody types in if they just type in
the URL the domain name like if
somebody’s types in VO to go go calm it
automatically takes them to HTTP colon
slash slash WWV odigo go calm
if they type in overtly HTTP colon slash
slash and they leave out the s I have a
rule set up you know Steve does my tech
work and he’s great and he set up this
rule that looks at all incoming traffic
for my site and sees if they’re asking
to connect with HTTP if so the rule will
say no no no that’s not there come over
here to the HTTP version so you don’t
even have to worry about letting
everybody know that you’ve changed your
site to secure and you don’t want Google
showing people on your website that you
haven’t done this because they won’t
show your site if people type in a
secure version and if they go searching
for you and you’re not secure Google
will simply stop listing you that’s how
they’ve really instituted this rule and
I’m I’m for it
because the safety of knowing that
you’re going to the right site knowing
that the site is who they said they are
and knowing that the data you put in for
questions and comments and forms and
transactions and and checkout and things
like that you want to make sure that
they are proper so when you see that
don’t be annoyed by it and if you’re
setting up a website be sure to get with
your ISP and make sure that they are
setting you up with a secure site and
get used to saying HTTP colon slash
slash or not seeing anything at all
because if you just say vo to go go comm
that’ll work just fine in any browser
you don’t have to worry about it
but understand that’s the difference
between HTTP and HTTPS I hope that helps
I really do
any questions about that you got
questions about how to do it with your
ISP or you know is this like way too
technical for you and you don’t give a
rat
okay fine let me know in the comments
below I’d love to know I’m trying to get
you know I’m trying to ready shoot aim
on these videos I have interests in a
lot of different areas and they all kind
of feed each other so that’s why I’m not
sticking
with just you know productivity or just
mindset or just the art or the Commerce
or the science this falls into the
science area right because if you’re
gonna build your own website you need to
know these things let me know in the
comments below I’d love to I’d love to
get your feedback if you want to join my
channel on YouTube and know when these
videos are gonna come out every day
oh wait that’s a clue they’re coming out
every day go ahead and click on my head
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also if you want the latest video I’ve
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care of you it’ll play it if you click
on it I’m David a Florence the 17th I so
appreciate you watching these videos
it’s been great fun and it continues to
be I will talk to you tomorrow

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Responses

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  1. I had to update my site recently. I had to have a friend help because the process got a little buggy for some reason but it’s all set now. Thanks for the video David.

  2. Then I would seek out another hosting service. Dreamhost and others know that this is now a must have, and don’t charge extra for it or for the security certificate you’ll need. Who is your hosting service (so we can warn people away)?

    1. I’m on Bluehost and they’re charging an extra $4.17/mo for the SSL, plus another $5.99/mo for a Dedicated IP Address, which they say is mandatory for the SSL. Clearly I need to make a switch if other hosts aren’t charging for it, but that means I have to go through the whole migration process… Ugggg….

    2. I called 1 & 1 IONOS (my web host). They have SSL that does have charges but the basic website that I have does not need those additional services so we have changed it to their free SSL service. It does pay to double check these things.

  3. Thank you for the explanation and the reminder I have such an important change that I need to make. I hope it’s not expensive like it used to be for SSL. Because I have a lot of domains.

  4. Thanks for clearing that up David. I keep getting emails from GoDaddy to pay for the SSL but I haven’t yet because I haven’t looked at my page in many months and I’ll be redoing it and I WILL switch it over to HTTPS!

    I wondering if you could go over a couple items that should be included on an actor/VO websites…maybe the necessities vs things that are not necessary

  5. I hadn’t realized that Google was penalizing me. Literally a checkbox to switch it on…d’oh! this was cogent as always and so timely. Thanks, David!