GlobalSign, an SSL Certificate provider, and CloudFlare, a company that helps accelerate Web site performance and improve site security, have teamed up to help GlobalSign customers improve the load time of SSL-secured web content.

GlobalSign said that effective immediately, all of its SSL customers are able to make use of the page-loading acceleration at no additional charge, and with no additional configuration needed.

According to the companies, CloudFlare’s infrastructure can boost SSL page-load speeds up to six times faster than traditional SSL requests.

The acceleration is made possible by using CloudFlare's infrastructure which currently consists of 23 data centers around the world.

When a site is using SSL Certificates, a request to their Certificate Authority (CA) SSL is required to determine the validity of each SSL Certificate. Known as Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP), a request is made by Web Browsers before a page can load and render the content.

Additionally, CloudFlare's network helps defend against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks targeted at GlobalSign’s OCSP services.

“Advanced threats have forced organizations to recognize that SSL is needed across a broader range of web pages, but concerns about sluggish performance due to the slow loading times associated with SSL-secured pages and the effects on end-user experience have stopped most companies from implementing SSL beyond the checkout and login pages,” GlobalSign explained in a statement.

"To maximize the value of their website investments, organizations should take advantage of performance and security technologies available; otherwise, they are putting themselves and consumers at risk of a poor user experience and cyberthreats," said Ryan Hurst, GlobalSign CTO.

In September, GlobalSign announced a partnership with Netcraft that enables them to alert GlobalSign customers in real-time if their site is being used in a phishing attack.