What is an EV SSL Certificate and How Do I Get One?

You may be here because you’re wondering “what is an EV SSL certificate?” or “what is an EV certificate?” Both of those questions are easy for us to answer. Extended validation (EV) SSL certificates are X.509 digital certificates that offer the highest level of authentication available with SSL/TLS. Essentially, they’re premium SSL certificates, often used by enterprises and well-known companies to identify themselves on the internet.

As you’re no doubt aware, trust is currency online. You can’t do business if people don’t trust you.

When you think about it, trust plays a major role in all of our lives — even if we never think about it. When we go to a gas station and pump 10 gallons, we trust that the station actually gave us the full 10 gallons. We trust the gas station. When we purchase a designer handbag from a department store, we trust that the department store is providing us with the genuine article.

Many brands have built this level of trust in the real world, but it’s hard to transfer it to the digital one — where it’s so easy to spoof and mimic big brands. EV SSL asserts organizational identity and helps those brands translate the trust they’ve earned offline into their digital spaces. When someone purchases something from your website or shares personal information, they want the assurance that they’re doing business with the right party and that the goods and services are legitimate. EV SSL helps offer that assurance.

What’s the Big Deal About EV SSL?

When you purchase and extended validation SSL certificate, you’ll be required to undergo a rigorous business vetting. We don’t say that to scare you off — it’s no big deal for any legitimate organization — it just speaks to the level of validation being performed so that the issuing certificate authority can confidently assert you are who you say you are.

Once this is complete, your certificate will show fully verified organizational information. Depending on the browser your customers use, that information might be displayed in the address bar (such as in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and Safari) or by clicking on the padlock icon (such as in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox). There’s no way to fake that — it’s unmistakable proof of your organization’s identity. If you train your customers to look for it, they’ll always know that they’re at the right place.

So, What’s the Secret for How to Get an EV Certificate?

SSL leaf certificates grow like clovers in huge sun-touched fields during the summer months. If you look closely, you’ll occasionally find one with four leaves — that’s an EV cert.

Just kidding. You just buy them.

You can purchase EV SSL direct from a certificate authority (CA) or from an SSL reseller. We actually suggest working with a reseller. CAs have rigid retail pricing that’s, quite frankly, a lot higher than it needs to be.

SSL resellers — like yours truly — work closely with CAs, purchasing certificates in bulk at insanely reduced rates. Then we flip those savings, selling the certificates at well below MSRP — sometimes as much as 85% lower! Our prices are so low that it practically feels like we’re selling them in a poorly lit alley out of the back of a black van. Fortunately, our van has an EV SSL certificate (questionably missing: windows) — so you know we’re legit.