You are in this page most likely because your IT team proposed you to add SSL certificate or you are from IT team and your client told you they want an SSL certificate as a requirement.

In any case let me try to solve the problem by sharing my knowledge of SSL certificate to you.

What’s SSL certificate

You would have definitely read somewhere that SSL stands for “Secured Sockets Layer”. Did they explain you with a scenario of an SSl example? I love breaking down things with examples and scenarios 🙂

Here you go.

SSL Example

I got this interesting example from Quora.com and I felt this is definitely the simplest SSL example. Imagine you go to a bank to open a bank account, will the bank open just like that? Definitely no. You need to provide basic details like SSN or Passport or some details which can strongly prove who you are to the bank than a random person.

SSL is just like the way of identifying you which acts like a unique identifier to the bank while making transactions. In future when you are making any transaction with the bank they will make sure you are the signing authority and not some stranger who is withdrawing all your money and leaving you out on the streets.

I hope the example helped you understand whats SSL certificate.

Do you really need SSL certificate?

I have listed below some reasons which could be a convincing reason to get an SSL certificate

• Does your website pass login and password details over the internet between the browser(client) and the server.
• You have a website which accepts clients credit/debit card information.
• Do you want your website visitors to trust your website.
• You want to improve your google rankings.

If you have any of the above reasons then you should definitely consider getting an SSL certificate.

How to identify if a website has SSL

Below 2 are the fastest way to identify if the website has SSL.

• The website address starts with “https://”
• The website url which show a padlock in the browser address bar like below picture.

Now that you have read so far, you might be confused on the type of SSL certificate you want to get. I have listed down below the different types and it should help you decided what SSL certificate you want to get.

Types of SSL certificate

Self signed certificates / Domain validated certificates

Self signed certificates are usually provided by the Hosting providers or even in Windows IIS you can create one yourself. This SSL certificate is free. Very rarely this needs any verification like the other SSL certificate types. This type of SSL certificate is usually preferred by simple websites or blogs like LazyCoding.in.

I am using Hostgator and cpanel provides an easy way to set up the Self signed certificate. To know more about Hostgator you can check the post here – Hostgator good or bad? Even Godaddy has free SSL certificate on Godaddy.

Read more – How to install a SSL certificate in cpanel

Next we will go through the commercial/enterprise SSL certificates.

Extended Validation SSL certificate (EV)

This is the most expensive and most trusted SSL certificate. This SSL certificate when installed gives the name of the business and country on the address bar. For website owners getting this certificate involves set of legal verification process. An EV enabled website can be identified like below picture.

EV SSL certificates are recommended for websites which collect customers credit card details or involving any online payments. Example could be e-commerce sites. The price for SSL certificate can be roughly up-to $2000.

Organization Validated SSL certificate (OV)

OV SSL certificate is the second expensive SSL certificate.This is most commonly preferred type of SSL certificate. This certificate is usually preferred by organizations who want to keep the login credentials or sensitive information secure over the network. OV SSL certificate is very similar to EV SSL certificate.

Wildcard SSL Certificates

Wildcard SSL certificates are bought by companies who want to secure a single domain and have multiple subdomains under the main domain. This option works out a lot cheaper than buying multiple single domain SSL certificates. An example is below where ancestry.com is the primary domain and all the subdomains under ancestry.com can use the same certificate.

Multi domain SSL certificates

Multi domain SSL certificates are used when an organization has multiple domains. Usually multi domain SSL certificates can support upto 100 websites. This option is cheaper if you have multiple primary domains.

Most SSL certificates can start from as low as $0 to as high as $2000. SSL certificate adds a significant value in boosting clients trust and also helps you in ranking higher in Google.

If at all you need help in setting up any type of SSL certificates mentioned you can contact me here – Contact me