Shopping online is pretty much a ubiquitous activity for people all over the world these days, and – not surprisingly – so much so that it’s now the preferred means of shopping for many people. Especially for certain goods, and not only do these people want selection, good prices, and the like, but they also want to be able to enter their credit card information and not have to worry about it being exposed.
Offering that peace of mind is absolutely essential if you’re in the e-commerce world, and nothing is more important in this regard as having your online transactions guarded by an SSL certificate. Even if you may not know exactly what these are, you’ve probably seen the ’##-Bit Encryption’ tag prominently on display once you get to the checkout when you’re shopping online.
Here at 4GoodHosting, not only do we offer very competitive prices on highest-quality SSL Certificates but like any good Canadian web hosting provider we have plenty of customers who are trusting our web hosting to ensure they’re ‘open’ for business 24/7 and all day, everyday.
Probably safe to say that there’s few if any of those folks who don’t already have their SSL Certs in place, but for those of you who are new to your business online then we thought we’d dedicate one post here to discussing SSL certificates and what you need to know to choose one for yourself.
Overview
There is a plethora of certificate types, and several categories and plenty of CAs. In advance of highlighting the different SSL certificates and how to choose the right one, we’ll first discuss why an SSL certificate is so important nowadays.
The reach and strength of cyber crimes has grown rapidly over recent years. So much so in fact that cybersecurity has become the #1 concern issue for both web users and website admins. The truth of it all is that cybercriminals can cost online businesses millions. The worldwide economy loses unimaginable amounts of money every year due to cybercriminal activity.
What SSL certificates do to protect agains this is that they enforce a secure connection between a server and its web users. They don’t only protect the sensitive information that is transmitted between a web user and a web server, but also boost ranking, improves brand credibility and go along way to boosting conversion rates.
Choosing the Best SSL Certificate
Knowing what SSL will be best for your online storefront can be a challenge. They’re generally categorized according to their validation level, warranty, technical support and domains support.
So what factors do you need to consider? These ones:
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Validation Level
Nearly all SSL certificates provide data encryption and session security services for websites. The validation level of each is where the primary differences between them are established. The validation level will determine how much information about a company will be shown in browsers or to the web users. The three main levels of validation are Low / Medium / High
Domain Validation (DV) SSL certificate – Low
These ones are also referred to as a low assurance, and are commonly used to protect standard websites, single domains, and blogs. The simplest form of validation is done where the website registration and administration approval are confirmed to issue the certificate. Processing time is anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
These certificates are suitable for low traffic websites or informative sites where financial transactions are not conducted. If you’re selling online, this type of cert will be insufficient for you.
Organization Validation (OV) SSL certificate – Medium
With medium certificate validation, an authorized agent verifies the domain ownership and company’s identity. This includes verifying the company name, city, state, and country. Web owners must submit some additional business-related documents for verification. As you’d expect, there’s more of a delay to all of this compared to a domain certificate.
Medium certificates provide appropriate security for medium-sized businesses that conduct standard (-$500 o/a) financial transactions and wants to provide assurances for customers that they can shop entirely safely within the site.
Extended Validation (EV) – High
These ones offer the highest level of security for websites, with a more rigorous validation process that verifies the ownership of the server and the legitimacy of its owner. Generally, the CA verifies the legal, physical and operational existence of the company, official government records, and databases, and confirms that only the genuine company is authorized to be in ownership of the extended-validation SSL certificate.
What you’ll see with these ones is the browser will show a green address bar with a verified name of the organization. The EV certificate is used by major players, like Amazon and Flipkart for example
Further, having an EV SSL really legitimizes the domain name.
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Domain Support
Next up you’ll want to determine how many domains you want covered with a single certificate. There’s three categories here:
Single Domain Certificates
Fine for protecting a single domain with its all subpages. Example:
www.mydomain.com/
www.mydomain.com/register
www.mydomain.com/about
www.mydomain.com/contactus
mydomain.com
Wildcard Certificates
The wildcard certificate allows its users to protect all the first level of sub-domains under an FQDN. It supports only DV or OV. The best instances are:
www.mydomain.com
info.mydomain.com
mail.mydomain.com
payment.mydomain.com
Multi-Domain Certificates
Also referred to as SAN or UCC certificates. They allow users to protect multiple FQDN domains along with multiple sub-domains. This choice will be ideal for you if you’re running multiple websites with single or multiple company names. All DV, OV, EV support this category.
www.mydomain.com
info.mydomain.co.uk
payment.mydomain.co.ru
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Warranty
The warranty attached to your SSL certificate should also be a consideration – it shows your customers how serious you are about protecting customer information. An EV Cert provides a a more extensive and better warranty, with coverage between $1,0000-$1,000,000 being possible within the warranty.
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Technical Support
The more expensive the Cert, the more technical support you will receive from an SSL provider. Free certificates generally never have technical support. However, with an EV or OV technical support is provided while installing and validating the certificate. Make sure the support is available via different sources like email, live chat, contact us page, phone, social media resources, etc.
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Price
It’s not uncommon for web admins to think they should invest big bucks even with the option to get a free certificate – the ‘you get what you pay for mentality’. That’s solid thinking most of the time. Free certificates are valid only for a few days, and then after that you must renew them. If not, the browser will show your users that the website is insecure. The price of paid SSL certificates start at $10 and can go up to $350, depending on the type of SSL certificate.
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Vendor
Different vendors provide different price ranges and security elements for each certificate. Before choosing any SSL vendor you should verify that they have a good reputation. Do that by watching their reviews and consumer’s feedback on their website.
