Verify SSL certificate validity, expiry date, issuer, protocol version, cipher suite, and SAN domains for any website.
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Get StartedSSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and its successor TLS (Transport Layer Security) encrypt the connection between a user's browser and your web server, protecting sensitive data like login credentials, payment information, and personal details from interception. Google confirmed HTTPS as a ranking signal in 2014, and since then it has become a baseline requirement for any website that wants to compete in search results.
Beyond the direct ranking benefit, SSL impacts user trust and engagement metrics that indirectly affect SEO. Chrome and other browsers display a prominent "Not Secure" warning on HTTP pages, which increases bounce rates and reduces form completion rates. An expired SSL certificate triggers a full-page browser warning that effectively blocks all traffic to your site until the certificate is renewed. For e-commerce sites and any site handling user data, SSL is not optional -- it is a legal and business requirement.
An SSL certificate contains several important fields. The issuer is the Certificate Authority (CA) that validated and signed the certificate -- trusted CAs include Let's Encrypt, DigiCert, Comodo, and Sectigo. The common name is the primary domain the certificate covers. The validity period shows when the certificate was issued and when it expires. The protocol version (TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3) indicates the encryption standard in use -- TLS 1.3 is preferred for its faster handshakes and stronger security. The cipher suite defines the specific encryption algorithms used to secure the connection.
The SAN (Subject Alternative Name) field lists all additional domains covered by the certificate. A well-configured certificate should cover both the apex domain (example.com) and the www subdomain (www.example.com) at minimum. Wildcard certificates (*.example.com) cover all subdomains automatically.
Yes. Google confirmed HTTPS as a ranking signal in 2014. While SSL alone will not move you from page 5 to page 1, it is a baseline requirement. Pages served over HTTPS will rank above identical HTTP pages, and Chrome's "Not Secure" warning on HTTP pages increases bounce rates, which further hurts rankings.
Browsers display a full-page security warning that blocks most users from accessing your site. This causes immediate traffic loss, potential deindexing if Google crawls during the outage, and loss of user trust. Set up auto-renewal and monitor certificate expiry to prevent this scenario.
TLS is the successor to SSL. SSL was deprecated after version 3.0 due to security flaws. The current standards are TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3, with TLS 1.3 offering faster connections and stronger encryption. The term "SSL" is still used colloquially to refer to all TLS/SSL certificates.
SAN (Subject Alternative Name) domains are additional domains covered by a single certificate. For example, one cert can cover example.com, www.example.com, and api.example.com. Wildcard certificates (*.example.com) automatically cover all subdomains of a single domain.