Web Hosting With a FREE SSL Certificate For Privacy

By now you've probably realized that WA have incorporated web hosting with a free SSL certificate to each and every website created here.

I was unsure at first if I needed to use this, and if it would be a problem changing over to https: from http:

Firstly I wanted to know a little more about SSL, which apparently stands for "Secure Sockets Layer".

So what exactly does it do?

Well the main benefits are to ensure that private information stays private. This is done through encryption. For those websites that sell products or services, this is paramount as you will gather information such as contact details such as phone numbers, names and addresses.

This SSL certificate builds a secure connection between the server of a website that is taking information through a sale, and the customer who is making the purchase.

What a purchaser may not realize, is that when a sale is made, the information can pass through more than one computer before landing at it's ultimate destination. For this reason, an SSL encrypted certificate is required so that the information will be unrecognizable if accesed when not authorized on route.

Visual Security:

When you visit a website with an SSL certificate, you will recognize the Secure Padlock at the beginning of the domain name starting with https: (instead of http:).

As we are all in the business of making a quid through commissions or even selling actual products or services, the Wealthy Affiliate web hosting with a free SSL certificate is a great way of showing our audience that our websites are trustworthy.

So yes, I would advise switching to HTTPS and it can be done with the flick of a switch. Here's Carsons article on this.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co...
The other thing you will need to be aware of when switching over, is that you will have to notify Google about this change. Jay (magistudios) has video training for this here.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co...

Have a great week.

Cheers

Nigel