Securing websites is no longer a secondary option at present, as the required levels of protection to secure websites against hacking attempts and data breaches are increasing day by day. Web browsers impose this requirement, and what increases the importance of website security is its inclusion in search engine evaluation standards for website quality and its impact on the ranking of the website in search results.
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| Secure Socket Layer |
In order to use this method to secure data exchange on your website, you need to obtain an SSL security certificate from one of the web hosting service providers.
Some web hosting companies offer SSL security certificates in exchange for an annual subscription fee, while others provide them for free with an annual hosting subscription, such as Bluehost, Inmotionhosting, Hostinger, and others. If you plan to subscribe to a hosting service for your website with one of these companies, you will receive a free SSL certificate and will not need to pay an additional subscription fee for it.
You can also register an account for your website on the (Cloudflare) platform, which specializes in securing websites against hacking attempts. Cloudflare provides a free SSL certificate for websites that sign up, including those on the free plan.
Once you activate the SSL certificate on your website, it will start working with the HTTPS protocol instead of the old HTTP protocol. A lock icon will also appear in the address bar of the web browser before the website name.If your website does not have an SSL certificate, a warning message will appear to visitors in their browser, informing them that the site is not secure for entering their data. Some visitors may leave the site to avoid risking their information.
Therefore, it is important to quickly obtain and activate an SSL certificate on your website to avoid losing more visitors, and potentially losing opportunities to convert them into customers.
Sometimes an error message may appear on the lock icon even after activating the certificate on your website. This is often due to the presence of old links to files that use the old HTTP protocol, in addition to other links that use the HTTPS protocol, which is known as "Mixed Content".
This issue can be resolved by consulting with the web developer responsible for creating your site or by installing a specialized add-on to fix this problem. For example, if your site is powered by WordPress, the popular "Really Simple SSL" add-on can solve this issue, which has been installed more than five million times.
