Forum Moderators: buckworks
I Googled some of this stuff and found some of it to be inline. We currently use GeoTrust and when I compare the three of the in Google Trends, GeoTrust is no where to be found. But Comodo has been leading Verisign. [google.com ] Now, this chart only shows 'search popularity', but if that's any indication of their business I think it's well worth consideration.
Oh, wait. I just discovered that Verisign bought GeoTrust. But did not PayPal who is owned by Ebay buy Verisign a few years ago?
To get to my question: IYHO, who's more widely recognized,accepted and trusted by consumers; Comodo or Verisign? ;)
[edited by: Propools at 9:22 pm (utc) on Dec. 11, 2007]
You could slap "WebmasterWorld Approved" on your site and someone would get a warm and fuzzy glow about it.
Also not sure how many of us check our browser and find out what certificate a particular website is using (comodo or verisign etc) before parting with our credit card information!
GeoTrust and Thawte were once competitors to VeriSign but are now owned by VeriSign.
As much as I dislike VeriSign as a company for their business practices, if you have a site/page where credit card information is entered you should invest in a VeriSign.com branded cert.
Of course the SSL security is strong on all of these certificates but for their own branded certificates VeriSign do do some verification of the sole trader or company that is issued the SSL certificate which gives them an edge for this kind of application for customers and their financial details.
GeoTrust is my second favourite as the CA root still says Equifax Secure, which was the original company bought by GeoTrust. Comodo's certs are a peer of GeoTrust, just without any widespread brand recognition yet.
Nothing wrong with Thawte just no great saving cost wise from a full blown VeriSign certificate, and people know VeriSign best not Thawte or Comodo - most have no clue about the EV - Extended Validation aspect. But they see VeriSign on most financial sites they use.
As an aside: in recent years one of the best ways to make a boatload of cash was to start a successful SSL certificate authority and then wait for VeriSign to make you an offer you couldn't refuse.
(Mark Shuttleworth for example who started Thawte in his garage has used his money well, funding things like Ubuntu Linux.)
[edited by: Bjorn_Iceland at 3:03 pm (utc) on Dec. 18, 2007]
Propools wrote:
But did not PayPal who is owned by Ebay buy Verisign a few years ago?
(The launch of Payments Pro was PayPal's acknowledgement that the vanilla PayPal model gets in the way of the mainstream customer buying experience for the majority.)
All they care about is the little locked box. They don't care if its verisign, comodo, thawte or geotrust.
The only time you would choose Verisign over the others is when you are doing a large number of transactions, and that tiny fraction of those who do care, outweights the cost difference between Verisign and the others.
Browser compatibility was also an issue in the early days, however, it is nolonger a factor.
The design, layout and content of your site, is a much bigger factor for trust, than a trust logo.
If you don't have a Toll free number displayed in the top banner of your page, your trust will take a much bigger hit, that no logo can remedy.
Comodo though has my vote for the SSLs. www.whichssl.com might help with some numbers as well.
-Corey
