What Is An SSL Certificate? Why Do You Need One?

Imagine you’re in the year 1950, when there was no internet. You write a confidential letter to your colleague, seal it, and drop it in the mailbox for the postman to pick it up and deliver it to the recipient’s address. After a few days, you realize that the confidential information that you had shared via mail is now with a blackmailer. On enquiry, you find out that your letter was stolen from the postman’s bag when he was on his way to deliver the letters. Now, after all this harm to your privacy, how will you ever trust the postman, or, for that matter, the department which is responsible for delivering your letters?

Come back to the present day. Replace those letters with all of your passwords, personal messages, and any other sensitive information. Replace the postal service with the website you are using to send or receive messages.

When we enter our password on a website, we are actually sending it from our browser to the database/server of that website, and the server also sends back information accordingly.

Just as physical letters were susceptible to stealing back in the past (and present as well), the Internet today is rife with the same kind of potential security threats. And just like us, internet users are also worried about their personal data being stolen, their passwords being cracked and their sensitive information falling into the hands of hackers and cybercriminals. In comes an SSL certificate to rescue.

What is an SSL Certificate?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It is a digital document that website owners upload to their website so users accessing it will know that it’s secure and that any personal or sensitive data they provide will be kept private.

An SSL Certificate encrypts the connection between visitors to the website and its server, which makes it harder for hackers to crack or steal any data or passwords. It’s a protocol used to transfer data between clients and servers. SSL certificates are the digital documents that prove ownership of a website and digitally sign an SSL connection between a visitor and a server. An SSL certificate is a must-have if you have a website or an e-commerce store.

It ensures that data passing between your site and visitors is encrypted and that no one can steal sensitive information like passwords or login details.

An SSL certificate has a few different functions. It acts as your digital identity, verifies that you own the domain name associated with the certificate, and establishes trust with your visitors. SSL certificates use a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to encrypt and decrypt information sent between parties.

How to Know if a Website Has an SSL Certificate?

1. Open your browser and go to the website you want to check.
2. Check the address of the website in the top address bar of your browser for the letters "https://" at the beginning of the address. The Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of websites that do not use SSL encryption begin with "http://," though the browser you use may hide this portion of the address entirely. Websites that make use of SSL always display the previous protocol with a "s" at the end of it, such as "https://www.example.com."
OR
3. Look for an icon with a closed padlock. This could be in the address bar or in the bottom status bar. This icon may not be visible if you have turned off your status bar, even on websites that use SSL.
OR

Example of a secure website that contains an SSL certificate

4. Right-click a blank area of the screen and choose "View Page Info" or "Properties." Look for a line that says "Connection" or "Security," then the encryption status and protocol.
OR
5. If you use a good browser, you can easily see the “Not Secure” sign in the address bar whenever you are accessing a website with no SSL certificate installed.

Example of a non-secure website due to lack of an SSL certificate

Why Do You Need an SSL Certificate?

There are two good reasons for you to get an SSL certificate for your website.
1. The first is that it improves your SEO (search engine optimization). When you add an SSL certificate to a website, it sends a signal to search engines like Google that the site is trustworthy and secure. This increases your chances of being featured at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) and brings more traffic to your website. However, if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, this may send a negative signal to search engines and result in your website being demoted in the SERPs.
2. The second reason you need an SSL certificate for your website is to keep your visitors safe. If you don’t have an SSL certificate, your website will show a red padlock or "unsecured" sign in the address bar. When someone visits a website with an SSL certificate, the address bar will be filled with green text that reads "secure." This makes your visitors feel safe and confident enough to enter their personal data and make online purchases.

How to Get an SSL Certificate

There are two types of SSL certificates – Standard SSL and Wildcard SSL.

The former is appropriate for individual websites, and the latter is used for unlimited subdomains on a single domain. Here’s a quick overview of the process you need to follow to get an SSL certificate.

First, you’ll need to decide which type of SSL certificate you need. Once you have that figured out, you’ll need to purchase an SSL certificate from a company that issues SSL certificates. Some of the providers include Comodo, DigiCert, Let’s Encrypt, and GeoTrust.

Once you’ve purchased your SSL certificate, you’ll need to install it on your server. The next step is to inform your website’s visitors that a secure connection is in place.

Bottom Line

Businesses that want to boost their online presence and keep their visitors safe from hackers should get an SSL certificate. The good news is that SSL certificates are affordable and easy to install. If you have a website and don’t have an SSL certificate, we suggest you get it right away. A secure website not only boosts your SEO but also lets your customers feel safe while browsing your site.

Quick Tip: Now that you know how important it is for the websites to have an SSL certificate, always make sure you check for its presence and proceed to enter your passwords only when there is one.

Search Query

SSL Certificate