What is the big deal behind SSL?
Imagine a ferocious Rottweiler dog guarding your website from hackers. Or a digital genie that magically helps you improve your Google search rankings. ECommerce SSL solutions for your website can help you with all that and more.
SSL Encryption technology has existed since the mid 90’s. It is an abbreviation for “Secure Sockets Layer”, and is also known as “Transport Layer Security” or TLS in some circles.
SSL is basically a cryptographic security protocol that protects data that is being transferred over a computer network. Simply put, it is an encryption system that allows the safe movement of information over a network.
SSL technology is being talked about a lot more in recent times in tech circles. Following points reinforce the importance of SSL certificates for E-Commerce players in today’s scenario.
- Better Google Search Rankings: Recently migrated to “HTTPS” from “HTTP”? Google will now rank you higher in their search results. Google’s search algorithm has started including HTTPS / SSL as a ranking signal. Having met with a decent response so far, expect this signal to carry more weight in the future.
- SSL Encryption a must for using Google AdWords, Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads: Google has made it compulsory for E-Commerce players to have SSL encryption on their check-out pages. If a seller does not have SSL certificates on their checkout page, then Google has the right to suspend the vendor’s Google Merchant account, block their Google Shopping feed and remove AdWord product listings. That’s gotta hurt.
- Protection from Phishing Scams: Imagine a perfect copy of your website, but it’s run by online pirates sitting in Nigeria. You wouldn’t want your satisfied customers divulging their personal information on a fake website masquerading as your own. You being the legitimate site owner can get SSL certificates easily, but the Phishing scammers can’t. So, users would be less likely to divulge any information on such websites without valid SSL encryption.
SSL pricing chart for top eCommerce platforms:
SSL Integration: How the magic happens
- SSL Certificates use 2 keys for authentication: Public and Private.
- They combine to form an encrypted connection.
- In order to get a certificate, the site owner needs to create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) on their server.
- This creates a public and a private key on the server.
- The CSR data file containing the public key is sent to a Certificate Authority or CA.
- Steps after this process will differ from server to server.
- In theory, the CA will use the CSR data file to create a matching Private key without witnessing its data structure.
- After this, the SSL Certificate is issued and installed on the server.
SSL Pricing of some popular certificates:
I hope that this information will bolster belief in the need for securing the Online Ecosystem. It only serves to help us take matters of web security into our own hands.
This post was originally written for the Zepo Blog: The Ecommerce Blog for Small and Medium Enterprises.
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yuvraj wadhwani
Hey Priyam,
You discussed an important topic here. SSL is becoming increasingly important. The SEO benifits will take time to reflect as a recent study by Ahrefs on rankings of over 2000 keywords showed that 80% of the top result on Google wasn’t using SSL.
Another thing that I don’t understand about SSL is how does SSL from one vendor differ from the other. I mean, Cloudflare offers a free SSL nowdays, so what are the advantages of picking one over another?
Priyam Jha
Hi Yuvraj.
Thanks for taking the time out to read and comment. I agree with your point about the encryption aspect. Google have made SSL a very light ranking factor in their search algorithm currently. I expect this ranking factor to be given more importance with time as internet users and businesses start to see the benefits of strengthened security.
You have asked a great question about SSL certificated and their vendors. From the limited knowledge that i possess based on online research, there are 2 primary differences between SSL certificates:
Most SSL certificates have popular brand names that are instrumental in pulling customers. Brand name will directly affect who the Certificate Authority is.The bigger the brand, the more secure the algorithm and CA will be. Some of the top Web Security brands that provide SSL certificates are Geotrust, Comodo, Symantec, Thawte, Entrust etc.
Cloudflare was in the news recently because of their free SSL announcement. But it was also reported that there were certain issues with their Universal SSL certificates like: Non-compliance with Win XP, Internet Explorer and pre – ICS Android devices.If you have a website that gets a lot of traffic, or you are on a shared server, then it would really make sense to invest in a reputed SSL certificate vendor that has proven advantages as compared to a free SSL certificate that has limited uses.