Why you should be using an SSL certificate on your website

Posted on 17 November 2017

Incase you don’t know SSL – Secure Socket Layer or HTTPS when used for displaying websites is a way of making websites secure.

Google want you to use it

Since 2014 Google have been pushing websites to move over to SSL, they have been doing this by moving SSL enabled websites up through their search rankings. They said that using an SSL certificate had a 1% effect on rankings then but this may or since changed. Last month (October 2017) the latest version of Google Chrome was released, Chrome 62. In this version of Google Chrome, a message is now displayed on web pages that contain forms alerting users that “the page is not secure”.

Do you take personal information?

If you take personal information on your website such as card details and identifiable information and not using an SSL certificate, you’re taking a very big risk and should proceed with caution. It’s very easy for a hacker to gain information when you’re not using HTTPS. You would not want your visitors information being stolen.

Browsers like it

It’s becoming common practice for web browsers to display green bars, ticks, locked padlocks and all sorts of other subtle messages telling users that SSL is best. If you care about how you’re visitors view your website you may want to get an SSL certificate sorted fast.

What we recommend

As a website design company we’re faced with this SSL question regularly, some websites may be better off without an SSL certificate for now but the future may hold bad times for websites using the un-secure HTTP protocol. Even if they’re not taking personal information as far as search engines are concerned it seems that things are definitely going the SSL way.

For more information about SSL and HTTPS we recommend this book —  A Concise Guide to SSL/TLS for DevOps: 2nd Edition