The private SSL certificate is an important upgrade to your website. The basic function of an SSL is to encrypt all communication between the browser and the server, ensuring that all data goes through a secure (HTTPS) connection. An SSL certificate is a necessity when you want to operate an online shop and process the sensitive customers data through your software. It helps you gain your clients' trust and increase your web site's search engines rank.
The certificate could be easily enabled through the Magento
Admin area -> System -> Configuration -> Web. There you can define the insecure (non-SSL) and secure (SSL) URLs:
![55[1].jpg](./download/file.php?id=2871&sid=aa46dd272f657e5e7e5702cb97901c0f)
- 55[1].jpg (48.41 KiB) Viewed 2399 times
In the
Base URL fields you should enter the unsecure (regular) web site URL and the web site URL for the SSL connections. You can leave the other values unchanged, as they will be set automatically by the script after you enter the
Base URL. Basically the other fields define the URLs of the main Magento store page and the URLs of the
skin,
media and
JavaScript folders. The drop-down menus allow you to enable and disable the SSL support for the web site's frontend and backend.
Bear in mind that the SSL connection over HTTPS is slower than the HTTP, thus secured connection should be applied only to the pages that contain and process sensitive information. Also, it is recommended to run the admin interface through an SSL. In this way you will increase the security of the script's backend.
