UPDATE: This review is now outdated. HackerSafe was acquired by McAfee, and the service is now called McAfee SECURE. You can now check it out here. For the most up-to-date information and recommendations, please join my free newsletter.
Edition #124 – 04/30/2007
In case you were wondering why I haven’t written lately, there are two reasons.
First, there have been a lot of lame products coming out lately, and I didn’t want to pollute your inbox with hype-filled junk like a lot of marketers have been doing.
Second, I’ve been in Atlanta at Armand Morin’s Big Seminar, filming auditions for the new reality show that I’m producing with Joel Comm.
I’ll tell you about the show in a few days, but today I want to let you know about an important service I discovered.
If you’re not familiar with HACKER SAFE, let me give it to you in a nutshell. They provide a valuable service in which they scan every part of your website looking for vulnerabilities. There are at least three huge benefits of this…
First of all, they will make sure your site is 100% secure and that any information you collect is secure.
Second, you get to be listed in their directory of trusted merchants, which gives you THREE one-way links from authority PR6 – PR8 pages. Inbound links of that caliber can boost your SEO, which helps you in the search engine rankings, and brings you additional traffic.
Third, by joining the service, you are able to display the HACKER SAFE logo on your site.
That may not sound like a huge deal, but believe me… it IS.
If you are SELLING ANYTHING online, HACKER SAFE can increase your sales. Period.
Maybe you remember when I reviewed StomperNet last year. If you have a really good memory, perhaps you remember their first video (the infamous $16k/day video) in which Brad and Andy showed how they do ecommerce.
One of the things they talked about in that video was HACKER SAFE, and how the HACKER SAFE logo instantly boosted their conversion rate and added more profit to their bottom line.
HACKER SAFE has become what I would say is probably the most trusted logo in the ecommerce business. The results are phenomenal.
They have done split testing on over 600 ecommerce sites, and they discovered that adding the HACKER SAFE logo results in an increase of 14.2% more sales on average.
Yeah, 14.2% more sales…
I’d say that’s huge.
Their client list reads like a who’s who of the internet world, which includes over HALF of the Internet Top 500. It would literally take me too long to list them here, but we’re talking about names you would recognize. Companies like A&E, GMC, PetCo, Cabela’s, Sony, Helzberg Diamonds, Ritz Camera, Newegg, U-haul and a ridiculous number of other big names.
They have Visa-branded PCI validation service in 73 countries, and they have several local and regional government entities who use their service. Even The World Bank is their customer… crazy, huh?
But it’s not just big businesses and governments that use HACKER SAFE. It is equally applicable to small businesses like yours. Over 75,000 small to medium sized businesses are already using HACKER SAFE, and they are benefiting a ton from it.
If you are interested in reading a bunch of real-life testimonials from HACKER SAFE customers, click here to read them.
Would you like to make an extra 14.2% of sales, for no additional work?
Please realize that this is NOT another internet marketing gimmick that is being passed around by the “guru’s”. This is a tried and tested program that has been extremely effective in the big business world outside of our little “IM” niche. Marketers in our niche are just beginning to discover the benefits of HACKER SAFE.
Why does it work so well?
It works so well because it’s become a symbol of trust, and people feel more comfortable buying from a site that they know is secure.
Big companies pay tens of thousands of dollars or more to use HACKER SAFE.
If you go to HACKER SAFE’s site, it will cost you about $2,000.00 to enroll in their service as a small to medium sized business. And that will cover two websites. When you consider the benefits, it’s a great deal.
Fortunately for you, I managed to get you an even better deal. Remember I said I made friends with Cresta at the next table over? She is hooking up Eric’s Tips readers with a killer deal on HACKER SAFE.
If you sign up now through the link she gave to me, you can get a huge discount. This is a limited time offer that they are testing out for us, and I suspect that this deal could disappear within a few days.
PLUS… after you join under this plan, you will have the option cover up to 100 extra domains on the same IP for just $100 more (equals $1 per domain), which is something they have NEVER offered before. I believe they normally charge about $500 for each extra domain, but they realize that many of you have several domains in this business, so they’re trying something new with us…
Click here for more information about HACKER SAFE
Remember, there are multiple benefits of this program:
Search engines view the HACKER SAFE merchant directory as one of the most authoritative directories on the internet. When you consider it often costs about $300 to get listed in authoritative directories (such as Yahoo), your three links from HACKER SAFE are worth the price of the package by themselves.
And when you consider the increase in your conversion rate, it really becomes a no-brainer. It should not take more than two minutes with a calculator to figure out how quickly your increased ROI will cover the cost of joining HACKER SAFE.
Again, if you sell anything online, I highly recommend that you check this out.
If this review came off sounding like a sales pitch, that’s because it is one. If you’re selling online, I think you should look into it because it makes sense, based on the numbers.
As always you can post your comments here on the blog.
Have a great day!
Eric-
Looking forward to the vidoes you have brewing from Big Seminar.
There isn’t much information on that page accept an order form. Are the prices presented for the life of ownership? It only reflects 2 sites, is there another page with an option to upgrade for the $100 you mentioned for 100 domains on a shared IP?
Also, any thoughts on alternative solutions (competition, or “knock offs” I think you called them)?
Yowsers…that’s expensive!
I assume they check once a day. So that means they’re charing you about $3 per check.
Still, a 14% return *is* rather nice 🙂
G-Man
Discount or not, it’s still a thousand dollars, Eric.
One thousand dollars is 14% of seven thousand dollars.
This offer is interesting to your subscribers doing about a thousand dollars or more per month on their website.
There is a monthly option at $99 which might be worth testing on your own website to see if it increases your conversions.
For those not doing a good turnover already, there are much more important areas to invest your time and money, than on a Hacker Safe bauble.
Got to like those links better than the SearchEngineTrust ones though! Could push the right site from position eight or nine to three or four on the big G.
Travis- The price is locked in according to Hacker Safe, so yeah it’s for the life of the account. Yes I beleive there is another page to upgrade the domains after you are a member. If you have any trouble finding it, let me know and I will put you in touch directly with Hacker safe and they’ll get it for you.
There are a couple of knock-off’s, but the knock-offs just don’t cut it in this case. One of them tries to give the impression that they do the same thing as Hacker Safe, but they do amost nothing. Another one doesn’t scan at all, but acts only as purchase insurance. I have heard (but not verified) that another one actually lowers conversion rates because it makes your customer pay an extra fee for the service. If there was a worthy knock-off I’d say go for it, but in this case Hacker Safe has pretty much monopolized thier niche, and it’s tough to go with a kock-off when people are already familiar with the trusted brand name.
PS– you will love the videos. Here’s a hint… I would love for YOU to try out too!
La Vie – you are right to an extent, but I’d set the bar a little lower than $1000/month. Because if someone is trying to build an ecommerce business, adding the Hacker Safe trusted seal could give them an edge in building trust and growing their profits faster. I’d say $500/month. But even if you were to set the bar at $1000/month, that’s OK. I know I have a LOT of subscribers making that much or more, and I think this could help them.
Hello Eric,
If I were to buy the Hacker Safe service, do they have an affiliate program to go with it that I could join?
Can I sell their services through an affiliate program of theirs if I am not a purchaser right now?
Thanks for your Tips newsletter. I have joined several newsletters and to be honest… yours is the 1st to peak my interest and can say that I have read evry one you have sent to me so far. I have a collection of others building in my inbox that never get read. LOL
Is there a site where I can get all of your products you sell? Well, I mean can I join them as an affiliate to sell them too? I like your blogs and sites. I appreciate your down to earth, realistic non-hype reviews and/or sales pitches.
Looking forward to all your future tips newsletters,
Thanks,
Michael A. Jensen
Harvard, IL 60033
http://SnipUrl.com/YGAR
Talking of PR6 sites… what is the value of a link on a PR6 site?
I have a few PR4 sites, but my SEO blog has become PR6 somehow. I was wondering if there’s money to be made writing short reviews of new sites that are relevant, with paid links in them? The reviews could help new sites a bit I think.
Michael- Yes if you join you will have the opportunity to be an affiliate. And yes you can apply to become an affiliate at this page, although they may not approve everyone.
Some of the products I review/promote have closed affiliate programs, and others are open. You would just need to check each of them like you did for this one.
Thanks
E
Russell- Depending on the site I’d say between $5 – $50 per month. You can find links for sale on AdBrite, and eBay, such as this auction
What are PR4 , PR6 & SEO sites???
What tips pages can I read to find out what you two are referring to?
It’s all greek to me,
-Michael A. Jensen
(a newbie marketer)
Michael – PR = Google Page Rank. The higher the better. It is not a total indicator of a site’s worth or authority, but in general higher PR is better, and it definitely holds value for ranking highly on Google. A link from a PR6 site could be worth the same as 40 links from PR 3 sites. Don’t quote me on that, but the idea is that each level of PR is exponentially better, like the Richter scale lol.
Hey Eric,
‘ve been doing quite a bit of research lately on internet security. While HackerSafe is definitely a reputable company, I found that there is another viable option. ControlScan is an internet security company that provides the same type of scanning service as HackerSafe, in fact I found them to offer almost the exact same service and more marketing at a much cheaper price ($1299/year). I know Cresta gave us a great deal but I wanted to share my findings as well. Keep up the good work!
kell-bells
Hey Eric,
I really enjoy reading your blog posts.
I would definitely test hacker safe for my future sites… for now the price is a bit too much for me.
Carlo
Kell-bells – thanks for your input. I appreciate it, and so I did some research about Hackersafe vs Controlscan and talked to some people in the industry who are familiar with them. What I found is that the difference between Hacker Safe and ControlScan is night and day.
Control doesn’t even come close to Hacker Safe in quality of security service (companies like Yahoo and HP use them for security), quality of Search Rank boost (there are several press releases from big name sites saying they saw a significant search rank increase), or in the amount of PROVEN sales increase (there are hundreds of press releases and statements from both big brand and small sites about this).
Hacker Safe is proven in over 600 published A/B tests to out perform all other trust seals. Even VeriSign says their own tests confirm this (See the quotes from VeriSign on the ScanAlert.com home page). And most importantly, the Hacker Safe seal associates your site with the top big brand sites: Check out these pages that show what you get with Hacker Safe:
http://www.scanalert.com/site/en/hsp/
Hacker Safe sites also get 3 listings in the PR 8 to 6 Hacker Safe Shopping Directory.
Actually, ControlScan’s “marketing” offer is just a gimmick using free or very cheap services. They say they use ‘college students’ to ‘hand list’ to 100 directories, but they actually just use this free listing site that you can do yourself for $35 at online
or download the software for free here: http://www.submithelper.com/User/User_Service.aspx This is worth doing yourself for free, or for $35 maybe – but really not worth much.
Their “Free Press Release” offer is also just a free/cheap press release site you can use yourself, and of very low marketing impact: https://www.sbwire.com/members/account/new/index.php (This little press release company’s home page is only
PR 5, while a company like United Press – a real press release agency – has a PR of 8: http://www.upi.com –
and will get you picked up by the real press coverage
sites for about $200 if you want to spend that)
I don’t know about you – but I don’t like to deal with companies that try to sell me services that I can actually get for free or next to nothing (and are worth only that). In fact, ControlScan was started in ’05 by a Hacker Safe customer who thought they could make a cheap rip-off of Hacker Safe.
I my professional opinion, you will be wasting your money on a cheap – no brand copy-cat service like that. You ALWAYS want to have your site associated with things seen on the big brand sites – not seals used only buy the small fry.
You get a whale of a lot more bang-for-your-buck for just a few dollars more with Hacker Safe.
I found Hacker Safe expensive and went with Comodo instead, they are a lot cheaper and better.
Interesting, the price of Hacker Safe is about 3 times more than Comodo but Comodo seems to be offering a bit of better service than Hacker Safe. What happened to Hacker Safe?
I had an issue with hacker safe by trying to get my money back, they over billed me and they would not refund me the difference. Speaking to them for about an hour on the phone they saw no reason to refund me back. They we so friendly with me to sign me up but rude otherwise when I was dealing with them after I gave them my money. They put me in a situation to make a police report to demand my money as I sent them a bill for a refund and compensation for my time; certified mail which they have still ignored me means they are unwilling to refund anything back to me.
I found Hacker Safe too expensive and really nothing better using them for my site to compared to nothing at all. It was very expensive for their service and also, I discovered them lieing to me on sometimes that they were off on something’s as promised but also their customer service was rude to me as well. I think spending more than $25.00 a month is too much for these logo’s and even though Hacker Safe says they check your site each day, that is like scanning your computer with Norton software for example. I thought the whole thing was a sales pitch and learned how to run my site more effective without these logos on them.
There are other alternatives other than hacker safe but the hacker safe brand is what comes first to mind for most when they think of security seals.
I found another review and other reviews about security seals on Google.
http://verifiedwebsite.net/hacker-safe-review/
Just another point of view…
Scott,
I completely agree with you.. I have my small business site and there is no way I can afford couple of thousand dollars for hacker safe seal. I think the additional 10% increase in sales won’t cover my cost.. All these number games are good if you are making a lot in sales.. I researched and found a great alternative (Merchant-Safe) and went with their seals couple of months.
I pay only $24 per month and Merchant-Safe seal is just what I need to give that additional confidence. I don’t know anything about conversion rates yet, but I will post in few weeks!
Here is a comparision chart of Merchant Safe vs Hacker Safe
http://www.merchant-safe.com/compare.html
Thought it might be useful to someone
I’ve heard a lot about Hacker Safe and been wondering what its really all about. I am thankful for this post for sharing and explaining what a Hacker safe is all about. Thank you!
Eric:
I can attest to the value of a HackerSafe seal. We installed it on one of our larger eCommerce sites and experienced an increase of 7% (not the 14.7% listed by the company, but not too shabby).
What do you suggest for a truly smaller eCommerce site. $2000 is pretty steep for someone starting up a website. What do you think about TRUSTe at about a quarter of the price? Do you get the same trust factor?
I have not personally split tested them, but I do think TRUSTe is a well-recognized trust mark, and any trust mark is better than none. Also McAfee has lowered the price of the Hackersafe service.