Saturday, December 30, 2006

The Big Three Search Engines Agree!

Google's SiteMap XML protocol provides a method for a web developer to publish a map of a site and submit it to Google. The purpose is to describe pages to be listed in the search engine. It's designed to let organizations guide Google's crawlers and should help get pages indexed more quickly and thoroughly. The big news is that now Microsoft and Yahoo! have agreed to also use this protocol! Visit http://sitemaps.org for information about using this XML protocol.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

EV SSL Certificates

Verisign has issued the first Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificate to overstock.com. EV SSL is a new standardized validation process created by CA/Browser Forum, a voluntary organization of leading certification authorities and vendors of Internet browser software and other applications.

EV SSL Certificates maximize consumer confidence when visiting Web sites by providing another visual cue (in addition to the lock icon) that these sites are who they claim to be and that their online transactions are secured by encryption. Certificate Authorities perform much more stringent checks to than currently take place for SSL certificates. These checks include: verifing an applicant owns the domain, works for the organization, has authority to update the website, and that the organization is a valid, recognized place of business. Internet Explorer 7.0 will be updated in early 2007 to indicate when an EV SSL Certificate is in place.