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Do search engine cares about the security provider used on the website?

Say, the website has initially been using Letsencrypt, and then later migrates to another provider which is using Symantec certificates?

Q1: Will there be a 404 error when the new site is visited?

Q2: What are the issues that I need to be concerned about?

Dave M
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Dikaiosune
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  • There are few issues - the only limitation in @lacek answer (which us sound) is that its possible search engines will prefer some CA's or cert types to others - for example EV certs have higher authenticity then regular certs and its very possible Google take this into account when assessing domain authority. Its equally possible that some CAs with dodgy behaviour are discounted by Google, but unlikely we will ever no for sure. Certainly as. A "first cut" its unlikely a LetsEncrypy search would be penalised compared to a basic one from comodo for example. – davidgo Jun 11 '20 at 11:07
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    404 errors are not related to certs, they are related to content in on the site. A bad cert won't cause an error code at the html level buy could throw up browser warnings if the cert is invalid (including out of date) – davidgo Jun 11 '20 at 11:09
  • It would be odd if Google somehow promotes sites with EV certs, when they have dropped highlighting EV cert status in browsers: https://www.troyhunt.com/extended-validation-certificates-are-dead/ – Tero Kilkanen Jun 11 '20 at 20:08

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There should not be any kind of error which is because the switch of the site certificate. As long as your certificate is valid and trusted by browsers, you should encounter no issues.

Lacek
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  • Would it be possible that spiders may penalise my site because there was history that my site was encapsulated with *certA*, then after quite a while it has change to *certB*? – Dikaiosune Jun 12 '20 at 06:39
  • No. Certificate changes are expected, since certificates expire. It would be foolish to penalize a site just because they switched to a provider better suiting their needs. – Lacek Jun 12 '20 at 07:15
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You might change the CA brand due to various reasons, like pricing, no proper support provided, their root certificate got compromised, etc. So is the reason we have multiple CA brands available . CA/B forum is the a forum where all the browsers and Certificate authorities participate and make sure the lives of the netizens are secured.

Ritesh Jha
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