A while back, HostMonster sent me this message:

Starting in July, Google Chrome will be marking any site that isn’t HTTPS as “not secure,” which could cost you visitors. And customers.

Enabling HTTPS on your site means obtaining an SSL certificate-something we are providing FREE to all customers. If you do not currently have an SSL in place, please be sure to check your inbox in the coming weeks for more information.

I checked my settings and everything seemed fine. Then one day I noticed that there was no S after the HTTP. Did I make the wrong settings? No, they were fine last time. Maybe it was a technical glitch. Then another artist said that she did not open my site and look at my portfolio because it was “not secure”. I am currently getting ready for two shows so I do not have time to check into this but…silly me, I started checking out my settings and searching for information even though I really had lots of other work to do before the courier came to pick up some artwork. I looked at my control panel to check my settings, scrolled down to SSL, and that is where the fun began. To double check things, I did a search on SSL and I find that my site provider’s free SSL certificates are not available at this time. For someone like me who is only partially literate in digital-speak, this was a nightmare.

The first time I had contacted the experts for help was after I was hacked and shut out of my own blog/website. The guy on the other end was extremely condescending and useless. Thank goodness for coder friends who cleaned things up. I contacted the experts again to confirm that everything was fine and received much friendlier help the second time. That first guy, however, stayed in my mind and made hesitant to ever contact them again for help for anything important like the SSL certificates. That was why I kept waiting and searching for information on my own. When I had a free afternoon, I got comfortable at my computer, took a deep breath, and contacted them. A lovely woman helped me out and had the SSL certificate up within five minutes.

As a result, my website now has “https” in front of its address to indicate that it is secure. Google changed their rules of what would be recognized as secure, so basically all websites had to change to meet their standards. My site provider initially said the update/upgrade would be automatic but it never happened. I kept waiting, hoping to avoid the chance of me tinkering with any code, and then finally called them. They fixed it within five minutes. All ready for you to safely check out now!