GoDaddy's 6-in-1 SSL: I Don't Understand

When I first came across GoDaddy's announcement that it now offers 6-in-1 SSL certificates, I thought it sounded like a great idea. Now you can accept SSL connections on multiple versions of your domain name (GoDaddy supports .com, .net, .biz, .info, .us and .org). According to GoDaddy's website...

Traditional SSL Certificates cause certificate security errors (scaring away potential customers) because they only work properly with a single domain. To prevent these errors, previously you had to buy a certificate for each domain you pointed to your Web site (single hosting account or IP Address). Not anymore!

But now that I've thought a little more about this concept, I'm not sure I get it.

Crate & Barrel, for instance, owns both the .com and .net domains for its name. I typed crateandbarrel.net in my browser and was redirected to http://www.crateandbarrel.com/Default.aspx. JCrew.net, likewise, redirected to http://www.jcrew.com/home.jhtml.

I clicked on Crate & Barrel's "your account" link, and ended up at  https://www.crateandbarrel.com/account/login.aspx. I did receive an warning message when I manually replaced .com with .net - but who would do that?

I repeated the same experiment at every online store I've shopped at. In all cases, visits that began at store.net led to order forms at https://store.com. It's not customary at all to receive SSL connections on multiple versions of one's domain name.

So is the new product just a marketing ploy on GoDaddy's part? Or what I am missing? By the way, a high assurance 6-way cert costs $250/year, versus $90 for a single-domain certificate. A basic 6-way cert costs $70, versus $20 for a single. That's a pretty significant premium for a feature that doesn't seem to be widely used.

Comments

[Nick Nelson]

Think of it as a 'bulk discount'.

A standard Turbo SSL cert costs $20/year, a 6n1 costs $70 and covers 6 TLDs rather than 1. You could also think of it as a 'psuedo-wildcard'.

As for a use? I know plenty of hosting providers who use host.com for one thing, and host.org for another (say: offsite emergency services).

Or, in cPanel's use, cPanel started off as cpanel.net only, so most clients go to cpanel,net, however they do now own cpanel.com, client goes to cpanel.com/store instaed of cpanel.net, they would normally receive a error, with a 6n1 they wouldn't.

Now, I still think it's 90% marketing hype, and 10% usefulness.

[NullMind]

The real apeal of MDC's (Multiple Domains Certeficates) will be for shared hosting on shared ip's

MDC's will become more common on the near future, a problem with SSL's right now is you need a dedicated IP for each cert, with MDC's you wont ;)