Google has been saying for a while now that having an SSL Certificate for your website will help it rank better within organic search results. While it won’t give you a huge advantage over your non-secure competitors there is always the possibility that, in the future, Google will give secured website a larger boost on search results pages as more sites adopt HTTPS. Google has become a huge internet authority and they’re taking this opportunity to persuade website owners to make their websites more secure.
Okay, so SSL certificates are important, but what are they?
Simply put, an SSL certificate allows your website to use HTTPS, which encrypts communication between websites and their visitors. Without a HTTPS connection information transferred to and from a website is sent as plain text and can be read by anyone with the appropriate software within your network, at your internet provider, or on the web server’s network.
One easy way to tell if a website is behind a HTTPS connection is to look for https:// (instead of http://) at the start of the website address when visiting a website, or to look for some form of padlock icon to the left (or right) of the link in your browsers address bar.
Why should I secure my website with HTTPS?
HTTPS is a must for any online business that handles cardholder information to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard and with growing online security education, many users will trust websites with the security padlock icon in the address bar more.
Next steps
Please contact us for more information on making your website HTTPS secure or if you have any questions about the above article, we’re here to help!
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