Verisign Trust Seal and Domain Metrics (Has noting to do with SSL)
-
Hi,
Does anyone have any evidence or case studies that Verisign Trust seal actually raises trust metrics?
I know there are the obvious benefits such as better CTR and Conversion (which could in turn raise trust metrics). But i am looking for actual sighted examples of Verisign increasing trust signals to search engines discrediting the correlation between search metrics improving.
I modified this as i think people are getting confused between SSL products and the specific Versign product i am talking about Verisign Trust Seal seen here. https://www.verisign.com/trust-seal/index.html?tid=gnps
This has nothing to do with security for transactions it is more geared towards all around safer user experience including Malware scans and enhanced "stand out" in SERPS. It is not just a Domain validation but an organizational or Branding authentication check"
With that being said, the question still stands Does anyone have any case studies or direct examples of trust being elevated in metrics for the specific product mentioned above.
Thanks.
-
Shane, it tends to be the sites that manipulate the rankings (black hat) know all those tricks and if all it took was a seal from an SSL company, they would have a different one on each page. It would be surprising that the seal actually gives you page rank, it most likely does the opposite since an outbound link only passes juice to the destination and all those seals link directly to the ssl provider.
As Ryan points out contacting Verisign directly will give you some insight, they are a company built on reputation and would not say it adds Google rank when it does not. You have to consider what their product is 'trust' and if they give you false information that hurts their marketting when you discover that is not the case. They would tell you what I said in my first reply, that their seal brings customer conversions, which is ultimately what you are after.
Generally ecommerce sites exclude their ssl pages via robots.txt or nofollows so the question does not get raised. If the content on those pages is secure but not authenticated then the value is limited as it is public and open to exploit. As a developer, I have attended many seminars on this topic alone.
The rank gain you get is secondary (from more tweets, blog links etc because people trust your site and like it) rather than a direct corelation.
Read the paper (relevant section below) from the link:
If I use SSL on my pages, will we be PageRank'd higher then non-ssl pages? So far, there is NO conclusive proof that a SSL site will get higher Google/MSN/Yahoo search rank listing compared to the same site which is unencrypted. In fact there seems to be no positive or negative result if you have your pages encrypted or not. This is because the quality of the data on the site is not validated by SSL, only that the certificate is independently verified. The most important factor in Google's PageRank for example is the amount of high quality sites linking back to your site. The idea being that if a site like Digg or CNN link to your site then your page rank will increase because their page rank is high. This is completely independent of whether your page is encrypted or not.
-
I know what the trust seal is (and most often it's accompanied by an SSL certificate signed by Verisign). But if you took a poll of people and asked them who Verisign is, I bet the majority wouldn't have a clue. Thus I don't pay for their seal (which I could have gotten with an SSL certificate). This is the only real difference in their costs.
Remember, the trust seal only shows up if you're running AVG antivirus in your browser
-
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. From a marketing perspective and knowing what i know about marketing and sales closing tactics I tend to feel that a company no matter where they point you will never be the counter argument, always the pro argument.
This is why your suggestion to me seems counter intuitive as i had obviously already picked out a specific product, and done research on it.
Also not to mention that if they had readily available information that proved they made domain (or brand) trust metrics with search engines go up (especially knowing what we now know about Panda), why would they not have that front in center as SEO's would be lining up at the door for that opportunity, in my opinion.
-
Actually Shane I carefully read your Question.
"Does anyone have any evidence or case studies...."
To clarify my response, I am not aware of any case studies being performed. If you are looking for "evidence", then the vendor may have that information. You can then determine for yourself the value of that evidence.
One more point. Vendors are usually aware of ALL the case studies performed on their product, even if they didn't perform the case study themselves. Using your SEOmoz example, if someone wrote an article on "What is the best SEO tool suite", then SEOmoz would probably be aware of it and COULD refer you to the article.
Of course, if that article wasn't objective or favorable, they may not. It would depend on the article and the ethics of the company involved.
-
.....
Hmmmm
I guess the wording of case study (meaning actual research done by a third party to investigate something or research) was missed.
Of course a company will tell me what i want to hear....
I was asking for specific case studies (that apparently do not exist because no one can seem to grasp the question) not a recommendation from the company itself.
Is SEOMOZ the best SEO tool suite? (i think so) but i would not recommend calling SEOMOZ to get that info..... seems kind of counter intuitive, granted companies "spin" data to look the best always in their favor...
-
Shane, Verisign offers a toll-free contact number. If I was in your situation I would pick up the phone and give them a call. If any data exists on this topic, they will surely have it.
They may have to research it a bit, but if they do not know, then I would suggest the data does not exist.
-
It can help your click through conversion rate if it is on the checkout page near the 'pay' button as it can build user confidence. I agree that a lot of users do not know all the safety measures developers put into a site, but if you give them a warm and fuzzy feeling when they are about to purchase and a place to check your security or privacy policy, then they are more likely to complete the sale.
I would doubt it adds rank but with Google's emphasis on usability it may be a factor on legitimising your site, especially if you have an EV SSL as the process is more rigerous to be validated.
-
Hi,
I am not talking about SSL, I am talking about the Trust Seal which DOES improve CTR as the seal is shown in search engines.
Of course SSL would not affect as this is only a certificate, but the Verisign Trust seal is an identity confirmation and a "thumbs up" for security aspects.
-
If your average user even knows who Verisign is I'd be amazed. I have an EV SSL certificate through Godaddy (who is more well known, but for other reasons) and I've not seen any indication that anyone even knows the difference. I've even found many users don't even know what the green bar in the browser means (and Safari doesn't help by making just the protocol text green).
As far as Google goes, I can't say Google does anything significant with SSL, let alone care who your SSL is with.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain not ranking in Google
https://www.buitenspeelgoed.nl/ is a domain acquired by our client. Previously this website was on http://www.buitenspeelgoed-keupink.nl. With the old domain they were ranking top 30 on 'buitenspeelgoed' in google.nl. Now with the new exact match domain they aren't ranking any more (for months). However, the website is indexed, as you can see on http://1l1.be/nz I don't know what to do anymore. Need some advise. What we allready have done the last months: made adjustments to the 301-redirects (this was originaly setup wrong by the webdesigner (de) optimized the homepage on 'buitenspeelgoed' (strange is the fact that the Moz robot can't access the site). Checked the robots.txt to see if the website was blocked for Google Checked the meta robots to see if the website was blocked for Google Disavowed some spammy (old) links which linked to the old domain Checked Search console > Fetch as Google if there isn't any Malware of some kind (and to see if Google can access the site) Checked Search consol to see if there manual spam actions (isn't the case) Checked for duplicate content by copy/paste some texts in Google and see if any other results are showing up (isn't the case for most of the texts) Please let me know what we can do.
Technical SEO | | InventusOnline0 -
What are the lowest acceptable metrics for a link?
I understand there is a subjective, human factor when deciding to link to/from a site. Nonetheless, what are the lowest Moz or Majestic metrics that are acceptable when building links. At what point do you say this site doesn't have the profile I would want? I am looking to clean up the backlink profile of a site. Also, I would like to set a criteria for building links in the future. I appreciate your thoughts on metrics when it comes to link building.
Technical SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
How to prevent duplicat content issue and indexing sub domain [ CDN sub domain]?
Hello! I wish to use CDN server to optimize my page loading time ( MaxCDN). I have to use a custom CDN sub domain to use these services. If I added a sub domain, then my blog has two URL (http://www.example.com and http://cdn.example.com) for the same content. I have more than 450 blog posts. I think it will cause duplicate content issues. In this situation, what is the best method (rel=canonical or no-indexing) to prevent duplicate content issue and prevent indexing sub domain? And take the optimum service of the CDN. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Godad0 -
Parked & primary domains
Aloha, I am completely new at this, so please forgive me if I am not describing my question very well, or if these questions has been asked many times before! My husband and I have an LLC and a DBA which sell the same products (although with different emphasis). For the LLC and DBA we have different domains, but we would like for both domains to lead to the website. To do this I have set one domain as primary (makanagardens.com) and the other as parked (bigislandcoffeeroasters.com). My questions are these: Since both domains have the same content, could I be "demoted" by google for duplicate content? I have submitted sitemaps for both domains to google and bing. Is that alright? Does it matter which domain name we link-build upon? So far I have been link-building upon whichever domain is applicable at the time. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | makanagardens0 -
Beating a keyword Domain
Has anyone here managed to beat a keyword/exact match domain to top spot? I am currently second and wondering if it is worth the time and effort to knock it off the top spot. How hard is it to get these very annoyingly favoured domains off 1st? Any help and advice much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Two blogs on the same domain
I have had two blogs on the same domain for a while now, and it just occurred to me that no one else seems to do this and maybe it's even weird. http://www.stadriemblems.com/blog/
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept
http://www.stadriemblems.com/scouting/blog/ One is our main blog, and one is for a very concentrated niche of customers. What are your opinions on this? Everything from SEO to best practices, to overall unusual-ness?0 -
Redirecting Domains
Hi Everybody, My clients owns a lot of domains related to his website. I redirected them to the website. So his website is: www.vallnord.com but if you type Vallnordski, vallnordsnow, etc etc they will go to the website, but they will not change the url and will keep vallnordski, vallnordsnow instead of going to vallnord.com Not very clear actually, so if you have 20 seconds to type them you will see it very clear. I was wondering if this was a good practice or it is better to actually redirect someone completely (If they type vallnordski.com take them to vallnord.com)? Is redirecting a good SEO practice? Regards, Guido.
Technical SEO | | SilbertAd0 -
A client will be translating their entire site into French in addition to English. For SEO purposes, should I host it on the same domain or create its own dedicated domain?
The current site is a long-standing site with good authority and a good number of links. Thanks....
Technical SEO | | JamesBSEO0