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This is the modern-day digital world where online information securities have never been so important. No step that a website owner takes to secure their website and make it trustworthy is negligible as cyber threats never cease evolving. And all this starts by installing an SSL-SSL certificate. If you have no clue about what an SSL certificate is, or maybe you are wondering whether your site really needs one, well, then this article should benefit you. Let's explore what the SSL certificates are, how they exactly work, and why they've become important for every site.
What is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL is a certificate used to digitally encrypt information from a user's browser to the web server hosting a website. If there is an SSL on a website, the URL would change from "http://" to "https://" where the "s" stands for "secure." Other than the URL in a browser, there would be an icon of a padlock displayed in front of the URL, meaning the connection is now secure.
How SSL Certificates Work
SSLs employ various encryption protocols that scramble the information sent across from a user to the website. In other words, when any particular person visits any website, an SSL certificate makes sure that whatever data is passed from the visitor's browser to the site will remain private and safe. This usually involves three steps:
Encryption: The SSL certificate does encrypt all information sent across a web server and a browser.
Identification: Authentication of the website so that users connect to the correct site, not the site of an attacker.
Data Integrity: It ensures that data is kept safe from corruption in transit and allows users to be sure that information transferred to or from them will not be changed.
Why Your Website Should Have an SSL Certificate?
Data Security and Privacy
The primary purpose of the SSL certificate is to ensure that sensitive information cannot be sniffed by any hacker, such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and personal data. Well, talking about this feature, it becomes very pertinent for any e-commerce website, online banking, and for those sites dealing with sensitive information of their customers. Even when your site doesn't deal with sensitive data itself, an SSL certificate protects your users' browsing sessions and prohibits intruders from injecting malicious content.
Establishes credibility and trust
Seeing that padlock icon or an "https" in your URL makes your users feel safer on your website. Lately, Google Chrome has been warning, upfront, in browsers that websites do not own an SSL certificate, by showing a sign reading "Not Secure"; this is seriously a put-off for visitors. This could drive potential customers away from your site to find other safer alternatives.
An SSL certificate is assurance that the information provided will be secure, hence building confidence and credibility with the users.
It increases SEO and search rankings
Google puts the user first. Google added the use of SSL Certificates to its search algorithms as one of the ranking factors in the year 2014. That means a website with SSL gets a slight boost in ranking, hence getting more visibility, unlike sites whose ranking lowers in detriment because they did not have it. That results in fewer visitors since websites without SSL receive a "Not Secure" mark.
Necessary for Compliance
This majorly pertains to the compliance of various regulations such as the GDPR in Europe and PCI DSS for online transactions. Not taking appropriate action against such regulations could affect the organization, considering heavy fines and some other legal penalties. This makes an SSL certificate one of the easiest ways for your site to comply with basic regulations.
Defends against cyber threats
An SSL Certificate offers a layer of security that will protect against the following commonplace cyber threats: phishing, data breaches, and man-in-the-middle attacks. Most phishing sites work like regular websites, trying to fool their victims into giving out sensitive information. An SSL certificate allows users to verify a website's authenticity or nature, making such an attack pointless for the attackers.
Enhances customer experience.
Safety in browsing will give assurance to customers for their satisfaction. A customer can feel safe to perform any transaction on your website only when he or she will sign up for newsletters and read the content. An SSL certificate makes sure that the customers visit your site, decrease bounces, and increase the rates of conversion.
TLS/SSL Certificates: More Than a Luxury, a Necessity Actually
SSL is no longer an option; it is a compulsion in today's day and age for purposes such as credibility, data protection, and search engine ranking. It should be an investment that has to be done for the website-big or small, whatever its type-and would benefit not only the website owner but also its user.
Why Choose TechInHost for Your Web Hosting?
At TechInHost, we believe that the end user has worries regarding the security of websites. We provide free SSL certificates for all the websites being hosted on our shared hosting. Therefore, registering with TechInHost does not only empower your website with good hosting services but also promises security and sure trust for the same along with its visitors. Secure your website today and win the trust of your customers with our hosting solutions at TechInHost!