What is SSL and can my Australian web hosting company help me?
If you need a a security certificate (“SSL”) for your website or app, most Australian web hosting companies should be able to provide this. However, let’s take a look at SSL first, so you can decide if you need a certificate for your website.
SSL stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” and is the current security technology used to connect your customer’s browser with your web server. They are essential for any website that collects personal data from customers and are vital for websites that use payment gateways (i.e. membership sites, ecommerce sites, and finance application forms).
Essentially, an SSL certificate changes the http:// at the beginning of your URL to https://. Your Australian web hosting company can sell you an SSL certificate and quite often they will activate it for you on your website as well.
Advantages of an SSL certificate for your business
If you don’t collect sensitive information via your website, then you don’t necessarily need an SSL certificate. Although there are rumours that Google will start to use these in their ranking algorithms next year, and some believe that this is already the case. In one way it makes sense to have an SSL certificate, even if you don’t collect sensitive information, because it lends you credibility and proves that your website is legitimate. It proves that you are who you say you are, because you have to go through a process to verify your identity before you can use an SSL certificate on your website.
Disadvantages of an SSL certificate for your business
When your web hosting company has activated your SSL certificate, if this is a brand new website with a new domain name, then you can go ahead and create your website as usual.
The problem is with existing sites, because you now have two websites – one that starts with http:// and one with https://. This is where you need an Australian web hosting company that also offers web development skills, because you have to remap your old website to the new website or else all of the backlinks and rankings belong to your old site. Your https:// website is a brand new website with no rankings in Google at all.
Want to get set up with SSL?
To register an SSL certificate at affordable prices, or for help redesigning and remapping your old website to the new URL, visit our instant quote page.
