Web security at a glance
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate is a digital title that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts information sent to the server using SSL technology. Encryption involves encoding data into an indecipherable format that can only be made readable again with the correct decryption key.
A certificate serves as an electronic passport that proves the legitimacy of an online entity when doing business on the Web. When an Internet user attempts to send credentials to a Web server, the user’s browser accesses the server’s digital certificate and establishes a secure connection.
Today Google forces us to have it
That’s right, if your website does not have SSL certificate installed, Google will directly penalize your website and leave it far behind in search results, that is, make you invisible.
Therefore, since Google is in charge, we must have the SSL certificate on our website. There are different types of SSL certificates and therefore different prices, depending on your website or business you need one or the other.
If your website doesn’t have it, all users except Google know it and are suspicious of it. You can see the example on our own website, look at the URL of our website in your browser and you will see that on the left side there is a closed padlock and the URL starts with HTTPS, this means that we have installed a digital certificate, the website is secure, your data is protected and Google will get along with us.
Now go to your website (even if most of them already have a certificate today) and look in the same area of the browser, if you don’t have an SSL certificate installed, an open padlock marked in red will appear and your URL will not start with HTTPS but with HTTP, that means you have a problem and we have to solve it now.
How can a user know if my website has an SSL certificate or not?
It’s quite simple, in any browser in the URL bar, on the left you will see a padlock.
When the padlock is open, you will see the message Unsecured web page, which means that you don’t have an SSL certificate.
When the padlock is closed, your web address will start with https and will be marked as secure, which means that you have an SSL certificate installed.
Why does Google penalize me if I don’t have an SSL certificate?
Since the beginning of 2017, Google has decided to mark all websites that do not have an SSL certificate as not secure. Besides, your website will lose a lot of relevance in the search results, or what is the same, your website will not please Google and will not appear in the users’ search results.