1. What is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL Certificate is a digital certificate issued for a domain by a central authority called the Certificate Authority. To be issued an SSL Certificate, you must purchase an SSL Certificate and then go through a verification process conducted by the Certificate Authority.
2. Why should I buy an SSL Certificate?
An SSL Certificate does 2 things: a. Encrypt the information sent from your user’s browser to your website b. Authenticate your website’s identity.
By doing these 2 things, an SSL Certificate protects your customers and in turn increases their trust in your online business. This is especially important if your website requires users to login using passwords or enter sensitive information such as credit card details.
3. Do SSL Certificates work in all browsers?
SSL Certificates are compatible with all major browsers.
4. Can I upgrade my SSL Certificates?
Unfortunately, we don’t support upgrades/downgrades at the moment. If required you can purchase a new certificate and install it on the same web server as the old certificate
5. Do I need technical expertise to set up an SSL Certificate on my website?
While it isn’t difficult to install an SSL Certificate, it does involve following a series of steps. Our team will assist you in completely in installing the SSL certificate on your domain
6.Different Types of SSL Certificates.
The most common way to setup an SSL certificate is on your own primary IP address. This is known as a Dedicated SSL Certificate. It will only apply to your domain and web server. Not everybody has enough money to purchase a dedicated hosting plan, but lucky for all of us, there are other solutions available.
Generally there are three different types of SSL certificates you could use. Some service providers may offer a free certificate as a limited-time trial offer but these certs are by no means any more secure than a standard HTTP connection and they expire quickly.
- Dedicated SSL – This is the most secure and evidently the most expensive solution. An HTTPS connection is only verified for your root domain targeted via a designated IP address.
- Shared SSL – Web hosts which offer shared hosting will sometimes have multiple domain names pointing to the same IP address. In this case it’s much easier for the host to manage one single SSL on each server spanning an array of different websites.
- Wildcard SSL – These can be similar to a dedicated or shared SSL certificate based on server configuration. Wildcard SSL certs will target multiple subdomains for your website. This is a viable solution if you split up different functions of your website e.g. shop.domain.com, checkout.domain.com, etc.
If you are just getting started I highly recommend using a shared SSL setup. It’s unlikely you will be able to afford a dedicated web host/IP address right away. And even if you can, the costs of a dedicated SSL certificate are atrocious. But it’s absolutely something you should look into if possible.
However, since this guide is targeted for beginners I think a shared certificate is more than enough to get started on.