Let’s face it. I’m a Google fanboy. I’m for the total Googlification of my life. I use docs, maps, hangouts, gmail, Chromebooks, Android, and all sorts of other things Google, even Google+. I’ve also built numerous Google sites and have students do the same for class projects. Here is where I’ve recently run into a problem.
I like to embed stuff. All sorts of stuff on my sites. Lately it seems Google has a problem taking embed coded from anything that isn’t from Google. Youtube, Forms, Maps are not a problem but any other code I seem to embed using the iFrame gadget or simply by switching to HTML view and pasting just seems to come up blank. This has been frustrating.
Today I discovered this while perusing the Google help forums. It appears that the issue is not so much with sites, but with the Chrome browser. Apparently Chrome wants any content embedded on your page to have the same security as the page itself. Since Google sites are HTTPS, then any embedded content must also be HTTPS. If you try to embed HTTP content on your site, Chrome will see it as a security risk and not display it. If you are having embed difficulties, here is what I did to “correct” the issue.
- Make sure you have the latest version of Chrome. Go to your Chrome SETTINGS and click HELP. On my Mac, the current version is 30.0.1599.101
- Embed the content you want to embed on to your page in Google Sites. You can use the iFrame Gadget or just switch to HTML view and paste the code where you want it to go. Save your page.
- The embedded content will likely not display, but look up in your Omnibox (where the page URL appears in your browser.) Right next to the bookmark bar, you should see a shield.
- Click the shield and then click “Load unsafe script”
The embedded content should display now. I have not found a setting to always allow this so you will have to keep an eye out for the shield when your pages do not look right. For now at least, it works.