Set Yourself Apart with Visual Security

Making your commitment to security known by your customers can be the difference between abandonment and a conversion. Strong visual indicators, such as Extended Validation certificates (green address bar) and trustmarks, greatly increase shopper confidence.

Online shoppers know to look for a yellow padlock icon to verify that their shopping information is encrypted. Now, when customers want to know if they’re shopping at the real merchant—and not some spoof site—they also can look for a green bar.

This green bar is part of a new process called Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer Certification, a ramped up version of the SSL Certificate that made encryption of customer-input pages mainstream. It began appearing as shading behind EV SSL-certified URLs shown in most browser windows. It provides a visual clue that the site has gone through additional checks to confirm its legal ecommerce status. However, adoption faces several challenges.

What is Extended Validation SSL?
Extended Validation SSL Certificates give high-security Web browsers information to clearly identify a Web site’s organizational identity. For example, if you use Microsoft® Internet Explorer 7 to go to a Web site secured with an SSL Certificate that meets the Extended Validation Standard, IE7 will cause the URL address bar to turn green. A display next to the green bar will toggle between the organization name listed in the certificate and the Certificate Authority (VeriSign, for example). Firefox 3 also supports Extended Validation SSL. Other browsers are expected to offer Extended Validation visibility in upcoming releases. Older browsers will display Extended Validation SSL Certificates with the same security symbols as existing SSL Certificates.