What is an SSL certificate?

What is an SSL certificate?

Bybasbuis Uncategorized

SSL-certificate

An SSL certificate is a digital file (which you won’t notice much of) that ensures a website is considered secure by the visitor’s browser. A website with a certificate does not start with http, but with https (with the S for secure).

Why is SSL safe?

  • The exchange of information between the visitor’s browser and the website itself is encrypted. This means that if the visitor fills out a form or makes a payment, the information is shared only with or via the website itself. It is almost impossible to intercept that information.
  • The authenticity of the website is verified. When a visitor visits the website wpnews.nl, the SSL certificate guarantees that you are actually visiting that site and not a site pretending to be wpnews.nl.
These two features of an SSL certificate provide the website visitor with a guarantee of security.

Voluntary or mandatory?

As a private individual who does not have forms filled out and does not sell anything, and therefore has no transfer of information from browser to website, it is wise to have an SSL certificate, but not mandatory. If you do have one, or own a business, it is indeed mandatory: it falls under your duty of care. If it’s important to you that Google includes your website in the search results and takes your website seriously, SSL is a must.

How do you know if a website has an SSL certificate?

As soon as a website has a valid SSL certificate, you can recognize this, depending on the browser used, by a padlock icon before the URL (the site address) or by clicking on the URL details (see the illustration). Nowadays, every modern browser also displays a warning if you visit a site that does not have a valid SSL certificate.
What is an SSL certificate?

As the website administrator

If you have or are creating a website, you need an SSL certificate. Almost every hosting provider offers you the option to request one free of charge. This can be requested for a site based on a domain name, but can also be requested for the domain including all subdomains; this is called a wildcard certificate.
Validity:
Please note that an SSL certificate is generally valid for 3 to a maximum of 12 months. Your hosting normally renews this automatically.

Does an SSL certificate belong to the site or the domain?

That is an interesting question. It applies to both. That does not mean that the domain must be registered with the same hosting provider as the website; often, that is not even the case. The application for an SSL certificate is always handled by the site’s hosting provider, not the domain’s. However, it is done based on the domain name. So, although the certificate is linked to the site, you cannot use it if you decide to use a different domain name for your website; in that case, you must apply for a new SSL certificate.

A website accessible under multiple domain names.

This happens frequently. The site has a fixed domain name, but you or the club has decided that the site or a specific page is also accessible via another domain name, or the same name but with a different extension. For example, apple.nl and apple.com.
Browser error message:
If you have another domain pointing to a website, the visitor typically sees an error message. You can resolve this by having the extra domain point to the http:// address, not an https:// address. This gives the website hosting provider the opportunity to switch to the correct domain name before requesting the SSL certificate via the SSL protocol (which is not available for the extra domain name).
More gallant solution:
You can also ask the hosting to add the extra domain name to the WordPress installation and request a multi-domain certificate. Please note that this is not always free of charge.

I keep seeing an error message.

The certificate is present, yet you’re getting an error message in the browser? We would love to tell you that this isn’t possible, but… it certainly is.

Causes of error message

The certificate is present, yet you’re getting an error message in the browser? We would love to inform you that this isn’t possible, but… it certainly is.

Your certificate is still valid

If an element (page, illustration, video, or link to an article) still has an HTTP address within your site (instead of HTTPS), this will result in an error message. That is logical. The SSL certificate guarantees the visitor that it is a secure site, and as long as parts of it are still HTTP, the website is certainly not yet completely secure.

Finding the cause and the solution

Check the address for each component (illustration, video link, etc.). If something like http://wpinsight.eu/illustrationname.jpg appears somewhere, you must change that to https (with the s). If there are a lot of them, or you can’t figure it out, the simplest and fastest solution is to use a special plugin. That is Really Simple Security. This ensures that all HTTP addresses are treated as HTTPS. Another solution is to use a ‘search and replace’ plugin. We mention this last because you have to be cautious with it; always make a backup first before you start using it. With a search and replace plugin, you can issue a command to search for everything using http://yoursitename and change it to https://yoursitename. Make sure you do the same thing again with www added, so http://www.yoursitename and https://www.yoursitename.

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