What is an SSL certificate?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a cryptographic protocol that deals with the safe transmission of information. The SSL protocol (today TLS, Transport Layer Security), thanks to the presence of the certificate that identifies the server, creates a secure connection between the server and a client (browser), encrypting the data exchanged on web pages.

Free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates and Paid SSL Certificates

All Hosting Solutions hosting plans include free activation of an SSL certificate from the Let's Encrypt Certification Authority (CA). Let’s Encrypt only issues Domain Validation (DV) certificates, which enable the HTTPS connection for a single website/host name and can be technologically compared to the paid RapidSSL and GeoTrust QuickSSL. The RapidSSL WildCard, paid certificate, on the other hand, certifies a domain and all its subdomains, while Geotrust True BusinessID EV also extends the certification to the company (Extended Validation - EV).
Activating a Let’s Encrypt certificate is very simple and can be done in full autonomy: for more information, please refer to the guide Activating the Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate from the ServerMate control panel.

HTTPS browsing

When you access a website that uses the SSL/TLS protocol (and therefore one that has a certificate), you can notice that, in the browser's address bar, the URL starts with https:// instead of http://, often supported by a green icon in the shape of a closed padlock that symbolises secure transmission. In this case, in fact, the HTTP protocol is replaced by HTTPS (HTTP over SSL) which becomes the protocol used by the server and the client (browser) to communicate through a secure channel.

SSL Certificates and Google, advantages of positioning your website

Websites that need to use SSL/TLS certificates are those that exchange private information and/or sensitive data with users (e.g. online banks, e-commerce sites) inorder to protect such information.
However, it is important to know that SSL/TLS certificates can also be useful for sites that do not engage in e-commerce and do not necessarily exchange private/sensitive information with users. In this regard, Google has published some articles (HTTPS as a ranking signal and Indexing HTTPS pages by default) in which it informs us that using the HTTPS protocol can help to improve the ranking of a site’s search: in other words, a site that uses HTTPS (SSL/TLS certificates) will have a better ranking than a site that does not.

Furthermore, from 68 version, Google Chrome will highlight sites that do not use an SSL certificate and therefore allow browsing in HTTP: a site without an SSL certificate, in fact, will be labelled as 'Not Secure' directly in the URL bar.

Therefore, having a secure communication becomes an important element, not only for sites that have an operational need, but also for all those for which search engine indexing is crucial, starting from Google.

Below is a list of what Google recommends for the adoption of the SSL/TLS protocol:

• Define the type of certificate you need: single, wildcard, etc;
• Use a 2048-bit key certificate;
• Use relative URLs for all resources that reside in the same secure domain as the site;
• Use the protocol (http or https) in the URLs for all external links;
• Do not include crawling restrictions in the robots.txt file of your HTTPS site;
• Allow indexing of your site avoiding using the 'robots' meta tag with 'no-index' content.

NOTES

All our certificates allow you to use applications and tabs on Facebook which, since October 2011, require the HTTPS protocol.

All SSL certificates, subject to our free technical verification, can also be used for websites not hosted by Hosting Solutions.