SUPPORT >
E-Commerce
General:
What is E-Commerce?
What is a "Shopping Cart Program" and where can I get one?
What is SSL?
How do I use ProHosting's secure server?
What's the difference between using ProHosting's secure server and
getting my own Digital ID?
Will SSL allow me to accept credit cards?
What is E-Commerce?
E-Commerce stands for Electronic Commerce. Just like e-mail stands for electronic
mail, and like electronic mail, electronic commerce allows someone to buy and
sell products and/or services over the Internet.
What is a "Shopping Cart Program" and where can I get one?
A shopping cart program allows you to offer products to your clients with an easy
to use interface that generally allows them to go to different pages within your
site and select items to put in their virtual "Shopping Cart". When they are done,
they check out and the shopping cart program calculates the total.
There are hundreds of Shopping cart programs available, it will be up to you to
choose the one that is right for your products. Try looking in our Reference
pages, which contain a wealth of information about Web publishing.
What is SSL?
SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and uses encryption along with a Digital ID
to provide the ability to transfer data securely over the Internet. Below is the
definition of what a Digital ID is, found off of VeriSign's web page:
Digital IDs are the electronic counterparts to driver licenses, passports, and
membership cards. You can present a Digital ID electronically to prove your identity
or your right to access information or services online. Digital IDs, also known
as digital certificates, bind an identity to a pair of electronic keys that can
be used to encrypt and sign digital information. A Digital ID makes it possible
to verify someone's claim that they have the right to use a given key, helping
to prevent people from using phony keys to impersonate other users. Used in conjunction
with encryption, Digital IDs provide a more complete security solution, assuring
the identity of all parties involved in a transaction.
For more information please visit their homepage at http://www.verisign.com.
You can also find SSL purchasing information at http://thawte.com.
How do I use ProHosting's secure server?
A
secure server is physically not a different server. It is the same server you
have your site on. The difference is in how you access them. The only thing
you have to do is use a different URL to access it. You can use the same files
you already have, the only thing that changes is the URL the you would hyperlink
to.
To make your web pages secure, just replace your normal URL:
http://www.your_domain.com/your_form.html
with the following URL:
https://yoursecureserver/~yourusername/your_form.html
You can use this in links. The URL for your secure server can be found in the
e-mail
that you received from us when you setup your account. Or, you can log on to
your netadmin: https://netadmin.prohosting.com
or http://www.your_domain.com/netadmin Insert your domain name and password.
Inside Netadmin, there are several Categories. Your SSL URL is in your
account Profile under the "Home" category. Click "Profile"
and it will bring up a screen that will list some information along with the
path to our secure server. Make sure you include the "S" in the https:// when
you are using the secure version of your Web site. Also make sure you include
the "~" in front of your username.
What's the difference between using ProHosting's secure server
and getting my own Digital ID?
There
are several differences. For starters, the URL is different, if you use our
secure server with our Digital ID, the URL will look something like:
https://secure99.prohosting.com/~yourusername/your_form.html
You can find out your specific SSL URL from within your netadmin profile (under
the Home category).
One disadvantage of this method is that those who wish to stay transparent,
e.g. a reseller, would want their clients to believe they have their own hosting
service. This method would make it obvious to their clients that they are not
an independent hosting service.
If you decide to purchase and use your own Digital ID, the URL will look something
like:
https://your_domain.com/your_form.html
Cost is another difference. If you use our Digital ID, you will have no extra
costs. However, if you decide to purchase your own from VeriSign, there will
be additional costs involved.
To find out more information about registering for your own Digital ID from
VeriSign, please go to:
http://digitalid.verisign.com/server/index.html
To
find out more information about gettign your own Digital ID from Thawte, go
to:
http://www.thawte.com/html/SUPPORT/crypto/certs.html
Will SSL allow me to accept credit cards?
SSL will provide you with the secure environment to transfer the actual credit
card information from the browser to the server, you will then be responsible
for getting the credit card information from the server to you, one common way
to do so is to use a system called PGP (encrypted e-mail). You can find out more
information about PGP from the financial institution you will use to process the
credit card information. You will then need to process the credit card information.
You will also be required to obtain a Merchant Account from an accredited financial
institution which you will use to process the credit card information. There are
several options available to you for processing the credit card information once
it is on the server. You can use a company like Authorize.net
which enables you to securely process credit card transactions 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.
|
CALL
TOLL FREE: 866-566-HOST (4678)
ProHosting has hosted over 2,123,705 web sites since 1996!
|
|
