Best SSL Certificate to Use
-
I am setting up an ecommerce website that will sell batteries and like most e-commerce sites we will be taking credit cards. I was exploring the different SSL certificates and providers and I was shocked at the difference in pricing. Anywhere from free to over $1000! What is really necessary and what is nice to have? Any suggestions on SSL providers?
Thanks
-
There's several different kids of SSL but it sounds like you're talking about a single domain. That narrows things down to the two most common kinds: domain validated and extended validation.
Domain validation is the most common kind of certificate. The certification authority will send an email to the administrative contact listed on the WHOIS of the domain. Typically it's a link and you click it and that's all that's involved. These are relatively inexpensive but only work for one domain or subdomain (i.e. the certiciate will be issued for www.domain.com but won't show as valid for domain.com). In this same vein, but more expensive, is the wildcard certificate, which works for all subdomains (*.domain.com).
Extended Validation is only available for corporations and you have to jump through a LOT of hoops to get one (birth certificate of one of your officers, letter of validity from your lawyer or accountant, etc.). They take some time to get but the advantage is that you get the coveted green bar (see PayPal's site for a good example).
It doesn't matter who issues the certificate. Verisign used to be a huge name in this area but not so much in recent years. You'll pay more for their name and "warranty", but I doubt anyone outside the industry itself could tell you who Verisign is, let alone what the difference is. I have two Godaddy certificates and it hasn't slowed us down one bit. Many people simply resell for another authority (i.e. GeoTrust, Comodo, etc)
The encryption itself doesn't differ between certificates. Your Private Key (the piece your server needs to decrypt the traffic) and Certificate Signing Request(CSR) will have to be at least 2048 bits in strength (industry-wide). The actual encryption between your server and your client's browser is something that is negotiated as part of the "handshake" when the connection is first made and is most likely 128 bits (although some browsers and servers can support 256 bits). One thing you will need to note is the difference between SHA1 and SHA2 (Godaddy directly asks you which you want and I'm sure the others do as well). When you look at a certificate's details in your browser you'll see who issued a certificate. If it says G2, they're using SHA2. SHA1 has some weaknesses and is being phased out. The only people who will notice the difference are people running Windows XP SP2 or earlier (running any browser, even Chrome or Firefox) and they'll get an invalid certificate warning.
Be sure that your host has plugged the Heartbleed bug or you'll expose your private keys (anyone with your private key can decrypt your traffic).
-
Most SSL providers provide the same exact service. The difference in cost is from the levels of insurance, brand name and provider of the SSL, and trust factor of the badge. For example, you can buy a SSL from GoDaddy right now for around $70. As far as I can see it offers no insurance against identity or infomation theft. If you want a SSL from Verisign, its around $1000 and offers a $1,250,000 warranty. Most people know the verisign badge, and trust that their information will be encrypted and secure. When you purchase an SSL from them, you also get daily malware scanning and other features.
It really boils down to what are you getting the SSL for, if you require the additional insurance, what other features you would like to have, and if you think the badge will be the deciding factor of conversion for your users. If I remember correctly, the more expensive SSL's use a different bit rate. For example 128 bit vs 256 bit.
Hope this helps!
-
Hello Jimmy, I hope this answers you. There are a lot of SSL Certificate offers that I have seen so far and as a Marketer and a developer, I have implemented a lot of SSL Certificates. I will highly recommend you start with a Minimal SSL Certificate either from RapidSSL, GeoTrust or Comodo since they are cost effective.
I just ordered an SSL Certificate from Iwebhub. Check them out too.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What type of website is best for seo.
I need a new website for my health insurance business. What type is best for SEO? Many thanks
Web Design | | laurentjb0 -
Do things like using labels on an element that is not a form input affect how google sees us in regards to accessibility?
Do things like using labels on an element that is not a form input affect how google sees us? It's an accessibility error that our devs have made - using a label element because it looks good, not because it's an actual label on a form field. Just wondering how that affects accessibility in Google's eyes.
Web Design | | GregLB0 -
Looking to remove SSL because it is causing very slow website download speeds. Does WP have a plugin that redirects SSL urls to non SSL urls?
After some extended debate with our web development team we are considering dropping the SSL from our website because it is adding almost 2 additional seconds to our download speeds. We know there is a SEO boost from having a SSL but we believe the extended download speeds maybe outweighing the benefit. However we are concerned about the SEO implications of having no method possible of redirect SSL to non SSL webpages. Does anybody know of a Wordpress Plugin that can force redirect SSL urls to non SSL urls?
Web Design | | RosemaryB0 -
Best SEO practice - Umbrella brand with several domains
Hi, we have several blogs and comparison sites on specific topics. All the domains rank on top positions in very competitive niche markets. We think that we can get more profit out of the domains when we put them under an umbrella brand. Customers that visit domain A can then also find products easily on domain B. We see this for example on health.com, with several brands in the top. To maintain or improve our rankings i'm looking for specific information for the link structure. For example, is it better to have the 'about us'/rel=author on each domain, with contributors on that specific domain or is it better to have them all in the (umbrella) brand domain. At the moment we have the structure like this: domainA.com, domainA.com/blog, domainA.com/about-us and domainB.com, domainB.com/blog, domainB.com/about-us. I think to maintain the rankings it is best to keep specific content (like blog/ about us) on the domain. So is it the best to just do side wide links with a logo (like health.com) and what about hosting? We work with wordpress, so all domains will be hosted on one ip? when we use the multiple site option of WP? All information on this topic is more than welcome 🙂
Web Design | | remkoallertz0 -
Can you use a base element and mod_rewrite to alleviate the need for absolute URLs?
This is a follow up question to Scott Parsons' question about using absolute versus relative URLs when linking internally. Andy King makes the statement that this can be done and that it saves additional space (which he claims then can improve page speed). Is this a true and accurate statement? Can using a base element and mod-rewrite alleviate the need for absolute URLs? I need to know before going off on a "change all of our relative URLs to absolutes" campaign. Thanks in advance! Dana
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
Is anyone using Humans.txt in your websites? What do you think?
http://humanstxt.org Anyone using this on their websites and if so have you seen and positive benefits of doing so? Would be good to see some examples of sites using it and potentially how you're using the files. I'm considering adding this to my checklist for launching sites
Web Design | | eseyo1 -
Should I use the google mod_pagespeed in my apache server?
Anyone already use it? There is some speed benefit? http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/module.html
Web Design | | Naghirniac0 -
Examples of e-commerce sites using ajax faceted navigation?
Does anyone have examples of e-commerce sites successfully using ajax to power faceted navigation?
Web Design | | ao.com0