In addition to the security benefits, SSL certificates improve brand trust and SEO rankings. That’s because they signal good website security measures that users and search engines expect.

To see if your website has an SSL certificate, check if the browser’s address bar displays a padlock icon and https:// before your domain name.

Three types of SSL/TLS certificates are based on their validation level. For domain-validated credentials (DV), the certificate authority (CA) will only ask you to verify the domain ownership via email, phone, or DNS records. Organization-validated certificates (OV) have a medium level of validation, so the CA usually checks documentation that verifies the organization’s name, contact information, and legal status. Finally, the extended validation certificates (EV) offer the highest level of validation, with the CA conducting extensive background checks to verify the registrant’s location, legal status, and order details. We can also differentiate SSL certificates based on the number of websites they can protect. Single-domain credentials protect one domain and its subdirectories, wildcard certificates cover a domain and its multiple subdomains, and multi-domain certificates secure multiple unrelated domains.

All types of SSL/TLS protection provide the same encryption level. However, some websites may need certificates with higher levels of validation to offer more proof of legitimacy or to secure multiple domains at once.