It was not long when the users were given the super-heroes like powers to serve their blogs (on .blogspot.com) over the secure protocol https which is good in many ways, but it was something not always liked by the masses and there are reasons behind it (which we will discuss soon.)
A little background on the matter if you are not sure what this is about:
Last year in September Blogger announced the support for enabling HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) on their blogs. Blogger has now been sending notification to Blogger users with the following message:
A lot of blogger users who were not using a custom domain for their blogs tried out the setting to serve their blog over https many didn't see any change, but most of them didn't like it, the reason are many, HTTPS encryption is secure, it is the preferred protocol for any website that transacts important data over the internet to keep it safe.
It is that security which disturbed many users when they used the feature to enable HTTPS, it resulted into errors in the functionality of many blogs which was caused due to mixed content.
Please also see this pinned post on the official Blogger Help Forums which explains the matter with more details:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/blogger/JGcHNmtIPiE
To begin with, you may want to learn more about HTTPS
A little background on the matter if you are not sure what this is about:
Last year in September Blogger announced the support for enabling HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) on their blogs. Blogger has now been sending notification to Blogger users with the following message:
Coming in late April!
All visitors will be able to view your Blogspot domain blogs over an encrypted connection by visiting https://<your-blog>.blogspot.com. Existing links and bookmarks to your blogs will continue to work. As part of this change, the HTTPS Availability setting will disappear, and your blogs will always have an HTTPS version.If you were unaware of the updates of support for HTTPS encryption this might come as a surprise.
A lot of blogger users who were not using a custom domain for their blogs tried out the setting to serve their blog over https many didn't see any change, but most of them didn't like it, the reason are many, HTTPS encryption is secure, it is the preferred protocol for any website that transacts important data over the internet to keep it safe.
It is that security which disturbed many users when they used the feature to enable HTTPS, it resulted into errors in the functionality of many blogs which was caused due to mixed content.
Please also see this pinned post on the official Blogger Help Forums which explains the matter with more details:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/blogger/JGcHNmtIPiE
How does it affect my blog?
First of all coming back to the message: There have been no announcements on the blog with detailed explanation of what is going to change. The notification message on the Blogger dashboard implies that the settings for enabling https will go away as starting late April everyone can visit your blog over the encrypted protocol i.e https://.To begin with, you may want to learn more about HTTPS
Are custom domain affected?
No, blogger blogs with custom domain can not be accessed on the https:// protocol. Only the blogs on <your-blog>.blogspot.com will see this change.
My Blogs will always be served over HTTPS?
There hasn't been any updates regarding this on the official blogs but from what we can see in the notification message it means that both versions will be available, a visitor would be able to either visit the HTTPS or the HTTP version.
Depending on what the user type in the protocol part of your blog address, for example if the users type: https://blogname.blogspot.com the secure version would be served, or if http is used, then the traditional http version.
Depending on what the user type in the protocol part of your blog address, for example if the users type: https://blogname.blogspot.com the secure version would be served, or if http is used, then the traditional http version.
It is difficult to say what the actual behavior would be, as Google wants to make each of their products available on the secure protocol, it is possible that the default protocol for all blogs may be changed to HTTPS.
Impact on old URLs and Search
As for bookmarks, old URLs etc, it may come in as a relief that those would continue working, as HTTPS availablity is the choice of the user, if they want they can visit the blog over HTTP by simply typing http:// before the URL, however there is still no information how would search engines treat this change, the question is that what version would be by default indexed by the search engines?
We do not still have much information on this, when the changes are rolled out and we have more details we will update our blog with more insight on this, so please follow our blog.
We do not still have much information on this, when the changes are rolled out and we have more details we will update our blog with more insight on this, so please follow our blog.
What are the benefits?
There are certainly benefits in having your blog served over HTTPS, most important of all is a sign of trust, HTTPS protocol as the name suggest is the secure way of serving content and having that on your blog as well gives the readers a sense of genuineness.
Here are some benefits of using it (mentioned here on this official BHF thread)
Here are some benefits of using it (mentioned here on this official BHF thread)
- It helps check that your visitors open the correct blog and aren’t being redirected to a malicious site.
- It helps detect if an attacker tries to change any data sent from Blogspot to the visitor.
- It adds security measures that make it harder for other people to listen to your visitors’ conversations, track their activities, or steal their information.
The disadvantage
Mixed content warnings are common to websites and blogs which has sub-resources on the lesser secure or as Google likes to call it insecure protocol, HTTP.
What this has to do with Blogger blogs? Well, if you like to add widgets and other stuffs on your blog from different sources it is quite possible your blog may be a victim of mixed content warnings if those widgets/scripts refers to any resource that is on the HTTP protocol, as these resources can be possiblity used by the unethical people to steal data even from sites with HTTPS encryption.
What this has to do with Blogger blogs? Well, if you like to add widgets and other stuffs on your blog from different sources it is quite possible your blog may be a victim of mixed content warnings if those widgets/scripts refers to any resource that is on the HTTP protocol, as these resources can be possiblity used by the unethical people to steal data even from sites with HTTPS encryption.
This is a disadvantage if your need of HTTPS has less importance than the widgets/scripts you use on your blog. Anyways it is not recommended to include these from sources you do not trust, and mostly the third-parties who provide these must be wise enough to serve their content over HTTPS too if they really want to help the users.
These are some resources to prepare yourself for any mixed-content warnings you may possibly get on your blog when these updates from Blogger regarding HTTPS changes rolls out. You may consider it doing now to futureproof your blog.
Blogger Help: Fix mixed content on your blog
Blogger Help: Fix mixed content on your blog
What's next
There's nothing you have to do in order for this change to take effect, later near the end of April this will roll-out to all the blogspot blogs.
Furthermore there might be some extra measures that needs to be taken once the changes are rolled out. We will keep updating this space for future updates on the topic, you can also follow StramaXon Blog & Gioogle Blogger Official Blog
