Have you received the error message that “Your connection is not private” when trying to access your or some other website thru Chrome or Firefox? Most likely the reason why you are getting this error is because you are trying to access the website that has expired or unknown SSL certificate. Here is what Google has to say about that:

Security is a top priority for Google. We invest a lot in making sure that our services use industry-leading security, like strong HTTPS encryption by default. That means that people using Search, Gmail and Drive, for example, automatically have a secure connection to Google.*

So what is the SSL certificate and what are the benefits of HTTPS encryption?

What is SSL Certificate?

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. It is a digital certificate that validates your website’s identity and encrypts the information that your website visitors send or receive. It protects your website content and also the visitors from hackers and thieves trying to steal your private information. When you install SSL certificate on your website, the visitors will see a padlock icon that will show right next to your url address, and also the prefix or the url address will change to “https://”. That assures your customers that they can safely submit their credit card payments, login to your site, etc. When somebody attempts to submit personal information on your site, for example to create a profile, sign up for membership, submit a payment, etc., the information they enter gets encrypted. The process happens behind the scenes and your visitors will not even notice the difference.

The benefits of installing SSL certificate

1. It proves secured connection to users browsing your website and it protects their privacy and identity as they enter their private information on your site.
2. It protects data connection between the browser and your web server, preventing hackers from getting in the middle.
3. You get more website visitors as they will no longer be warned that your website is unsecured or unsafe. I am not sure about you, but when I get that alert, I think twice. And many people that don’t understand what SSL certificate or https connection mean, are likely to cancel the connection and never enter your website.
4. Increase your sales- I don’t know about you, but I am not using my credit card on a website that doesn’t have SSL certificate.

SSL Certificate, Search Engine Optimization and your Rankings

Early in 2014 Google started running some tests. Here is what they said:

(…) over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal.*

Although back in 2014 SSL Certificates played only light part in SEO, Google admitted that they may decide to strengthen it’s importance. And sure enough, they did. At the end of January 2017, Chrome will mark any sites that collect passwords or credit cards as non-secure. So there- you will see that big error message you saw at the beginning of this article- warning: “Your connection is not private”.

Many SEO analysts that are watching the rankings will agree, that having SSL certificate moderately correlated with higher search rankings. So although HTTPS plays only a small part in rankings, it is definitely worth considering it. As I mentioned earlier in this article, “Security is a top priority for Google.” If it is a top priority for them, it should be a top priority for us as well.

[button url=”https://www.secureserver.net/ssl/ssl-certificate.aspx?ci=48761&prog_id=530100&pl_id=530100&isc=ISC” target=”_blank” color=”blue” size=”medium” border=”false” icon=”” btn_content=”Get Your Secure SSL Certificate Here”]

 

 

* Quotes From: https://security.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal_6.html