Battle for SSL Dominance Heats Up

The December 2010 Alexa-Netcraft SSL Index was released recently and it seems the battle for dominance in the SSL (secure socket layers) market is heating up and getting pretty nasty.

According to the report (compiled monthly by CatapultWorks) which provides an indication of SSL certification usage across the most trafficked websites by cross-referencing the Netcraft SSL Survey with the Alexa Top Sites list), GeoTrust maintained its leadership position and trumped low-cost competitors such as Go Daddy for the seventh straight month, securing 35,540 unique domains among the Internet's 1 million most visited websites. Go Daddy registered 27,578 unique domains for the same period.

"GeoTrust is consistently leading the low-cost, high-volume segment of the SSL market over competitors such as Go Daddy," said Jeff Barto, senior product marketing manager for GeoTrust. "We expect to continue our lead into 2011 on the strength of our global service reach, convenience, attractive prices and product reputation."

GeoTrust is not pulling any punches with Go Daddy either - calling out Go Daddy customers interested in switching from "the third place provider to market leading GeoTrust® SSL" with a rather nasty "Who's Your Daddy Now" campaign.