I'm planning to purchase a SSL certificate for one of my sites when I'm concerned about points made in these articles:


WiredTree: The Most Significant Issue With SSL – And How To Solve It
TechRepublic: POODLE vulnerability hastens the death of SSL 3.0
Infosec Island: 
IPv6 - The Death of SSL
This POODLE Bites: Exploiting The SSL 3.0 Fallback


Is SSL secure any more? What are they talking about? I thought SSL was bullet-proof, but now I'm confused.

If SSL is not secure any more, with regard to safeguarding the information exchanged between my clients and my server via HTTP, what are my options other than a SSL certificate?

All except the third link refer to SSLv3 (version 3) which is affected by the poodle vulnerability. You should be using the TLS protocol which is the successor of SSL and not affected. You should configure your web server to support TLS 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2, which should cover most devices out there save for a few archaic ones like IE6.0, while still remaining secure. The certificate used for both protocols is the same.

Most mass media websites refer to TLS/SSL as simply SSL. They are actually two separate protocols.

More information here : What's the difference between SSL, TLS, and HTTPS?

As for the 3rd link, it refers to IPv6 superceding SSL. My opinion is that it will take at least a few more years for IPv6 to become the de-facto addressing scheme. In the mean time, an SSL certificate will secure your site. Afterall, you can buy a cert for 1-2 year duration if you are afraid it will become obsolete in the near future.  
