SSL certificate

Hi,

I am new to selling online and after clearing several hurdles on our way to launching out site one of our suppliers of products has asked us about our security certificate.

Please can somebody shed light on this subject. Do they mean an SSL certificate? Do we need one if we are using third party servers from Secure Trading and PayPal to take payments? We will be collecting data and users will have accounts. Where do you get one? Is there a standard organisation to contact?

Thanks,

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=181940

Similar query posted today at above thread.

You need to contact your hosting company and get them to sell you an SSL Cert. Set it up in your shop and bobs ya uncle
Without an SSL it like advertising your site is not secure dont buy from me

You need to contact your hosting company and get them to sell you an SSL Cert.
NOT always a good idea, hence why suggested reading thread quoted.
Forum member quoted large fee by his hosting company, when can buy one
yourself for 10/20 dollars if you shop around.

misty:

NOT always a good idea, hence why suggested reading thread quoted.
Forum member quoted large fee by his hosting company, when can buy one
yourself for 10/20 dollars if you shop around.

I have been warned to be careful of 10/20 dollar certs not being 100% secure. I do not fully understand the technology behind what is going on so cannot judge this myself are you able to briefly explain why there can be such a big difference in price between certificates? Can a UK company (as we are) rely on American sites like https://www.godaddy.com for service and support on technical issues? Has anyone had experience of https://www.ukfast.co.uk as our developers put us in contact with this company?

There is very little difference (for the most part) in "general SSL certificates" - other than their price, so you can opt for the cheapest one and still get the identical level and nature of protection that you get from a more expensive one.

The "heavyweight" certs, usually for major "enterprise level" SSL, such as those issued by Thawte and Verisign, do a lot more than just "vanilla" SSL, but most "mom 'n pop" stores don't need that level of certification and/or protection.

It is therefore very unlikely that a SSL cert selling for $20 is "less effective" than one selling for $200 - so go for the $20 option and don't be hood-winked by a re-seller that tells you you are getting more for the extra $180... He's just pocketing the difference, at your expense.

Well in that case the £250 per year that our developers are asking is not completely over priced. They say that they cannot use third party SSL's on their servers. So otherwise it would be a case of using a different company to host in order to get the ssl cert.

On a seperate note is there a huge difference in speeds of hosts? We are given a free first year of hosting by our developers upon completion of our site on a shared server. Obviously it depends on individual specs, but it seems for any decent dedicated server they charge hundreds of pounds. Is this worth it?

JaminT:

Hi,

I am new to selling online and after clearing several hurdles on our way to launching out site one of our suppliers of products has asked us about our security certificate.

Please can somebody shed light on this subject. Do they mean an SSL certificate? Do we need one if we are using third party servers from Secure Trading and PayPal to take payments? We will be collecting data and users will have accounts. Where do you get one? Is there a standard organisation to contact?

Thanks,

Here is a site that has alot of great information on SSL certs....
http://wbservr.com/ssl.html

They say that they cannot use third party SSL's on their servers

Total nonsense. ALL ssl certs are provided by 3rd Party suppliers. Web Hosts can, if they choose, rebrand those SSL Certs under their own name, but the SSL Cert is still provided by a 3rd party.

On a seperate note is there a huge difference in speeds of hosts?

A huge difference. Bucket shop hosts offer large amounts of bandwidth and web space for very little money - and can only do this by packing every server to the gills with data, resulting in slow websites.

Obviously it depends on individual specs, but it seems for any decent dedicated server they charge hundreds of pounds. Is this worth it?

Hundreds of pounds per month for a fully-managed dedicated server. But unless you need one then shared hosting will do fine.

Here is a site that has alot of great information on SSL certs

C-r-a-p website (hardly worthy of the name "website"). An "affiliate" link to vastly over-priced SSL Certs.

Vger

Vger:

Total nonsense. ALL ssl certs are provided by 3rd Party suppliers. Web Hosts can, if they choose, rebrand those SSL Certs under their own name, but the SSL Cert is still provided by a 3rd party.

A huge difference. Bucket shop hosts offer large amounts of bandwidth and web space for very little money - and can only do this by packing every server to the gills with data, resulting in slow websites.

Hundreds of pounds per month for a fully-managed dedicated server. But unless you need one then shared hosting will do fine.

C-r-a-p website (hardly worthy of the name "website"). An "affiliate" link to vastly over-priced SSL Certs.

Vger

Ok, thank you. I thought they must be talking bull about the ssl cert not working, they most likely say this so that you buy through them and they make their cut.
What i may do then is start with their free shared hosting and £250pa ssl cert. Then as the website grows we can consider moving to a managed dedicated server as the site will hopefully justify it. How easy/difficult is it to move a website accross servers? Does the migration cost a lot?

I know i can answer many of these questions by googling them but with so many hosts competing for business i have seen a lot of forums are filled with hosting company employees slagging each other off.

What i may do then is start with their free shared hosting and £250pa ssl cert.

I would only pay £250.00 per annum for an EV (Extended Validation) SSL Certificate, and wouldn't pay anything near that for a standard SSL Certificate.

How easy/difficult is it to move a website accross servers?

That depends on the size of the website and its database and if the two servers use the same control panel. Doing a transfer from one server to another is relatively simple if both use cPanel - because then you can do a cPanel-to-cPanel transfer.

Does the migration cost a lot?

If you are staying with the same hosting company then they shouldn't charge for moving the site. If you move to a Zen Cart Certified Host then 4 out of the 6 will provide free transfers.

Vger

This post may be "removed" as it touches on an endorsement, but I'm going to say it anyway...

For years we hosted our sites on various hosts (all over the world - because we build sites for people all over the world), but we recently took a decision to host zencart sites ONLY ON CERTIFIED ZENCART hosts.

And I cannot tell you what a difference it makes to work with people who know zencart, who understand eCommerce, and who don't rip you off!

We should have made this decision many years ago.

Thanks for the mention, even though it did (as you predicted it would) get removed. I must admit that I find it more than slightly odd that if anyone mentions a Zen Cart Certified Host by name then that name gets removed but if anyone mentions a non-Zen Cart Certified Host, such as GoDaddy etc., then their name doesn't get removed from posts.

Furthermore, the same moderators removing names of Certified Hosts which get mentioned often then advise people in various threads to go to the Certified Hosts page. Weird or what? Especially so as Certified Hosts kick-back a significant percentage of hosting fees to the Zen Cart project. Doubly weird.

Vger