Technology keeps moving faster and faster. Security is one of the most important issues we are dealing with. SSL certificates secures http connections to websites.

It’s not that hard to catch in- and outgoing connections. If the connection isn’t secure (encrypted), all the traffic is readable by hackers. For example if you enter your password on a website, the form is submitted to the server. If this data is watched by someone, he will be able to read your password, it’s just plain text… But if the website is secured by an SSL certificate, the data will be encrypted. Only the server will be able to decrypt the password and to check if you are authorised.

It’s easy to recognise an SSL (https) connection. The regular http is replaced by https. You will see a green lock in the url as you can see on the picture.

The sad thing about an SSL certificate is the price. You have to pay for it, and the better your encryption has to be, the more expensive the certificate is.

BUT, recently Let’s Encrypt has launched free SSL certificates for everyone. It’s sponsored by companies like facebook, mozilla, google,… Companies that want to make the internet a secure environment.

So if you like to secure your website, just contact your hoster / website builder and ask him to install such a free certificate!

SSL has also a positive influence on your SEO score. Google takes this into account because they want to endorse a secure internet for everyone.