Online businesses are a great way to make money in this day and age. Startup costs can be lower than bricks and mortar stores (depending on what you do), and you can get up and running fast. The thing about online stores where transactions will be taking place, you cannot scrimp on security. With data breaches on the rise every day, it’s more important than ever to consider both you and your customer’s digital privacy. What’s the best way to deal with that?
You should most likely be getting an OV or EV certificate from Namecheap, a business SSL. Here’s why.
What SSL does
So, why is SSL so vital, anyway? Simply put, it secures the connection to and from your website so that any information sent over the link cannot be stolen by malicious third parties. This protects both you and your customers from data theft. It’s integral to any website that values the security of its users.
What is a business SSL?
As you’ve gathered from the intro, a business SSL is an OV or EV SSL. But what exactly do those random letters mean? They both refer to an SSL certificate’s validation level. There are three levels of SSL validation, and it’s generally recommended that the more you require users to interact with your site (like make a purchase), the higher the validation level should be.
Okay, but what’s validation? Validation refers to how much the Certificate Authority (CA) issuing your SSL will investigate you or your business before sending you your SSL. The more extensively they verify, the more information will be included in the SSL itself. So when a user clicks on the address bar padlock, they’ll be able to see who exactly is behind the website and whether or not they seem legit.
The first validation level is the most straightforward verification. That’s domain validation (DV). The CA only checks whether a person has access to a site’s admin email and issues the SSL within a few minutes. This is not recommended for business sites because very little info will be available in the SSL for users.
Organization (OV) and extended validation (EV) have more extensive validation checks, which is why they’re often referred to as business validation. For these, they’ll perform verifications such as calling your company premises and checking government records for company registration. As a result, these two can take a few days to complete and issue your SSL. But we’re sure you’d agree it’s worth it for customer peace of mind. OV has fewer checks, while EV has the most extensive verification process, so it’s up to you which best suits your particular business site.
