An Analysis of 1M+ Online Stores by SalesOptimize Highlights That Only 1% Are Fully Compliant to the New Google Chrome Secure Status.

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ASOS Global Online Retailer

ASOS Global Online Retailer

Google Chrome v.56 released on 26th January with a new security measure whereby Google identifies if a website is secure or not.

A website is deemed secure if its page starts with https://. Consider https://www.salesoptimize.com/ which is an eCommerce market intelligence & lead generation website. Google has identified this site as a secure connection.

Let’s consider www.asos.com which is one of the world’s top online retailers yet Google advises that its connection is not secure.

This issue will affect many online stores and may increase the rate of cart abandonment. Google states that a connection is secure by using an SSL certification; which the shopper sees as HTTPS:// in the URL.

Regrettably, neither Google nor the shopper can easily accept that HTTPS:// is secure. To understand this, we need to explain how a website receives HTTPS:// status.

Where an online store collects credit card information, they are required by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) to have an SSL Certificate.

Online stores receive an SSL certificate from a certification authority which authenticates the credentials of the online store so the shopper knows that the website is trustworthy.

Once the SSL certificate is added to the website, the connection is deemed secure and the address becomes HTTPS://

Here are some key insights from an analysis we did of over 1 million online stores.

  • Only 37% of online stores analyzed are HTTPS://, therefore Google will identify the remaining 63% as Non-Secure
  • Only 1% of HTTPS:// online stores are fully compliant in terms of secure connection and identify verification
  • In some cases, SSL certificates were shared across 1,000+ websites e.g. we found 7,184 certificates were shared across 557,230 websites

Regrettably, HTTPS:// does not mean that a website has been verified and is secure.

We applaud Google’s intention to raise the bar of transparency however SSL certification would need to improve before Google or any other company can use this as a basis to say a site’s identify has been verified and the connection is secure.

Source: www.SalesOptimize.com

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