Why SSL Certificates are needed for every website?

 

While previously, SSL certificates were thought to be a luxury, in today’s age, it is considered to be extremely important and the most basic step towards securing the online presence of your business.

 

Benefits:

Data Protection

Better SEO Ranking

Protects from browser warnings

Increased customer trust

Mandatory to satisfy PCI-DSS requirements

Types of SSL:

DV SSL

OV SSL

EV SSL

Wildcard

Multi-Domain

 

Data Protection

SSL certificate encrypts all data communication between the server and the client (visitors’ browsers). Thus, it protects all the sensitive information (like credit card information, personal details, passwords etc.)  from being intercepted by any hackers.

Better SEO Ranking

In 2014, Google announced that it will take SSL Certificate into account when determining page rankings. Hence, having a SSL Certificate installed will help boost your search engine ranking too. This will ensure your brand gets more focus and your online shop generates more revenue than your competition.

Protects from browser warnings

From 2018 onwards, Google has decided to warn all the visitors explicitly when visiting a website without SSL certificate installed using Google Chrome. This warning was soon followed by most of the major browsers like Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari etc. Thus, if the visitors are warned of the lack of security, they probably will not want to visit your website, thereby affecting your brand image as well as revenue.

Increased customer trust

Once you install a SSL certificate on your website, you will be provided with a trust indicator known as “padlock”. This gives the visitors of your website confidence in sharing any data in your website. The OV(Organisation Validation) and EV(Extended Validation) SSLs also provides an additional layer of confidence by providing the company name and location as embedded information in the certificate. This helps provide an assurance to the visitors about the authenticity of your business.

Mandatory to satisfy PCI-DSS requirements

If you are accepting payments via your website, then as per the guidelines set by the Payments Card Industry (PCI), SSL Certificate is a must-have to comply with its guidelines.

 

Types of SSL:

DV SSL

Domain Validated (DV) SSL certificates are the lowest level of SSL Certificate to secure your website. DV SSL certificates are the cheapest SSL Certificates in the market despite providing the same level of encryption as the OV and EV SSLs. It verifies that whoever requests the certificate controls the domain that it protects.

OV SSL

OV(Organization Validated) SSL certificates have a stringent validation process. Certifying Authority (CA) verifies the organizational identity (e.g. a business, nonprofit, or government organization) while issuing OV SSL certificates. The same business information (name and location) is available under certificate information. Ideally, this type of SSL Certificate should be used by all registered businesses to validate their authenticity.

EV SSL

EV establishes a higher standard of trust than OV and requires more rigorous validation checks to meet the standard. These provide the highest level of authentication. These bestow the customer’s confidence in e-commerce/ payment gateway website.

Wildcard SSL

Wildcard SSLs work in the same way as single OV,EV and DV SSLs. However they provide protection to all the sub-domains under the primary domain. This helps in saving both money and effort.

Multi-domain SSL

A multi-domain name provides the ability to include multiple domains and sub-domains within the same certificate. In most cases, multi-domain certificates can support up to 100 different domains using one certificate.

 

Please feel free to share your feedback or query in the comments section below.