An SSL certificate — what is it?

Quite often users visiting a site see an address like this in the address bar:

Some people wonder why the address looks like that on some sites and not on others. The answer is simple: the site's owner uses an SSL certificate.  

According to Wikipedia, SSL (secure sockets layer) is a cryptographic protocol that provides the most secure communication.

In plainer terms, an SSL certificate is a set of files placed on a server; when a connection is made to a server protected by the SSL protocol, a special part of the certificate is passed to the client. The client checks that the SSL certificate is valid, after which data is transmitted over an encrypted connection, and no third party can intercept anything or use it for dubious purposes.

What an SSL certificate does:

• confirms that the server is trustworthy by creating a secure connection between client and server;
• testifies to the responsibility of the company that owns the site — a certificate has to be bought and a number of mandatory checks of the domain passed, and for higher-level certificates checks of the company as well;
• raises customers' trust in the site — the green address bar signals to users that an SSL certificate and a secure connection are in use;
• makes it possible to work with resources that connect only to SSL-protected sites, such as payment modules.

Besides that, there is a big plus for a site's search promotion: since autumn 2014 the use of an SSL certificate has had a positive effect on a site's positions in Google. That is, the site will rank better in search results than sites that use no certificate. 

The question arises: how do you choose a suitable SSL certificate for a site? Which characteristics and parameters should be taken into account? 

The characteristics of SSL certificates:

• the number of subdomains protected — if you need to protect more than the main site, a wildcard certificate will do;
• compatibility with the mobile version of a site — as a rule, cheap certificates are not very well supported by mobile devices, and the browser may show mobile users a notice about an unknown certificate;
• the different kinds of validation — you can read about that here;
• the guarantee — the sum the certification authority is prepared to pay a user if they were attacked on a site with an SSL certificate and suffered because of it;
• the length of the certificate's key — the longer the key, the safer. A 2048-bit key is quite enough for good data protection today.

These characteristics make it possible to choose a suitable option for your site or sites. 

The SSL certificates other people use for their sites protect you from unwanted or unsafe content.

Also, when moving a project to SSL, every resource the client's browser loads must be moved to HTTPS as well. 

A few days ago John Mueller, a specialist in Google's search quality team working with webmasters, said that "the search engine may not give a ranking benefit if a page returns an HTTPS mixed content error". Errors of that kind arise when a site using an SSL certificate contains some insecure content elements: images, social media plugins and others. 

On our site you can choose and buy an SSL certificate, and if you cannot pick one yourself, our specialists will help you with it.