Which SSL Certificate You Need?

Which SSL Certificate You Need? Pricing of SSL Certificates Varies and SSL Certificate is Difficult To Change – This is a Critical Topic. As we are directly related to Cloud Computing and we are not a seller; often many individuals contact us for asking which SSL Certificate to pickup. Unfortunately, most assume a biggest wrong – just like a $10/year low cost SSL Certificate might not be the right for your need, in the same way, a $500/year SSL certificate might be a wastage of money. When Google has announced that HTTPS has to do with Search Engine Ranking, lot of peoples immediately started haunting behind the wild question – Which SSL Certificate I Need?

As SSL Certificates were usually never used by nonbusiness website, but gradually with the revelation of NSA Spyware activities and HeartBleed, possible introduction of HTTPS 2.0 in near future; mostly the serious information providing websites including blogs are quite serious about shifting to HTTPS from HTTP. SSL is technically a wrong terminology now, it is actually TLS Certificate. But, usually still we use the terminology SSL Certificate for common usage. What we have found is quite normal – no SSL Certificate Issuing Authority has explained this simple question. This can lead to another wrong done by the business so far – for Cloud Computing Application delivery, we must use the appropriate certificate.

Which SSL Certificate You Need? And Why So Many Types of SSL Certificate Exists?

Depending on the number of domains covered, we can divide SSL Certificates in to two groups :

Wild Card SSL Certificates are for all the domains and subdomains. It is usually not required as if we use a shopping subdomain, we will assign a fully separate server setup (CNAME is not standard now but AAAA is used with specific IP address), we can think a subdomain as a separate domain. Over 90% will never require a Wild Card SSL Certificate. As most CDN services has SSL certificates now, we need not to bother about subdomain. Google, Apple like bigger business will require Wild Card SSL Certificate.

Single Domain SSL Certificates are for particular domain or subdomain. This is the type we usually need.

Depending on the authenticity checking against the holder (i.e. the SSL certificate buyer party – I or you), we can divide SSL Certificates in to two groups :

Quick SSL Certificates are for non-critical data related domain or subdomain. These are the cheapest SSL Certificates and issued within few minutes. The business or person is not checked. This is technically suitable for test setup, debugging and for personal websites. Blogs using AdSense Ads are not personal website. As transfer of data will become somewhat one way, we do not recommend to use Quick SSL Certificate for serious professional blogs. Anyone virtually can obtain a Quick SSL Certificate if somehow the domain mail system has been compromised. This is basically domain validation. Quick SSL is kind of branded phrase, it is actually domain validation certificate. Authenticity of the owner of the domain remains dependent on WHOIS data.

Organization Validation SSL Certificates bear various names like Secure Site, Server, Business ID. The difference of pricing is due to other factors. It takes around a week to obtain such SSL certificate. This is the standard SSL certificate for all the websites which has to do with money (= personal data or valid data of a human or organization) – from Serious blogs running AdSense Ads to Google Web Search. Extended validation (EV) is a special type of Organization Validation SSL Certificate. You might not need an Extended Validation (EV) certificate but just an SSL Certificate which checks your business or your presence. Authenticity of the owner of the domain is not remaining only dependent on WHOIS data, but also data by this SSL Certificate Issuing Authority. Request to obtain an Organization Validation SSL Certificate can be cancelled by a SSL Certificate Issuing Authority if they suspect the website has suspicious stuffs – like illegal downloads.

Depending on the strength of trust of SSL certificate :

This is quite blurred division. Almost all SSL Certificate Issuing Authorities provide 256-bit encryption strength. We can divide it in to two types – EV and non-EV. We have discussed about Extended Validation (EV) certificates before. EV clearly establishes the legal and physical existence.

Depending on the materials for which the SSL certificate will be issued :

Code Signing Certificate and all the others. Others are the type of SSL certificate we use for websites. Code Signing Certificates are needed for distribution of closed source softwares. For Open Source Softwares, we practically do not need code signing in this method. Code Signing Certificate is a validated Digital Signature.

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Which SSL Certificate You Need? Can it Do Better For SEO?

Yet, quality of SSL Certificate is not calculated by Google – this is from a normal logic. With increasing authenticity of the certificates, rightly configured server security settings, a good web host with white listed IP, good content, minimum on site SEO described by Google Webmasters Tools, social sharing; with increased usage of automation, back links ( read SEO services ) will not be required. Google has no SEO service, Google has AdSense and AdWords; when your authenticity is verified (and you are spending money), with the users’ behavior; it is possible to rank a webpage. In other words, the original Page Rank Algorithm, so far used to calculated the power of back links. Ultimately it turned out to be a weak point.

There is huge difference of a website served over port 443 versus over 80. Right now, back linking will work, but gradually “How Back Linking is Happening” will be counted by machine learning. If Google’s promotive actives with the SEO Experts is making you confused – know it very well, it is for two reasons – Google loves to use Open Source community based stuffs – from Android to Chromium. Second reason is to find out their faults.

People have lot of questions about Extended Validation (EV) certificates, yes an EV certificate can be a better performer. You can check, social networks are upgrading to EV, like Twitter. EV is fully differently treated over non EV. Use EV if your website has valuable content. Browser displays the EV fully in a different manner.

If your certificate’s authenticity is lesser than that of the social networks, dangerously the social sharing URLs can rank higher up. You have certified this namespace :

Now if lot of people Favs, do RT, they can ride just above your website’s rank. After applying the certificate, you must not overdo SEO. If once suddenly Google switches to machine learning for search engine ranking method and it marks your website as suspicious, it will be dangerous to get back. Number of years covered also matters – longer is better.

Always, hire a security expert or experienced server admin for mission critical need. This article is not a substitute of an expert advice, definitely it is better than SEO Expert’s costly advice though.

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