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Important things to know before purchasing a SSL Certificate

Posted on: November 15th, 2013 by Walid Abou-Halloun
Categories: SSL Certificates and Technology. Tags: SSL. Releted Products: SSL Certificates.

Important things to know before purchasing a SSL Certificate

SSL’s provide peace of mind to your customers about the authenticity and trustworthiness of your website. Without a valid SSL certificate you may be losing customers. Websites without a valid SSL certificate show a warning that suggest to the browser that they should not proceed because it is not a secure website. Websites with strong SSL certificates can guarantee their customer’s details are safe.

Not sure what SSL certificates are? Check out our previous article here. So, what do you need to know before you proceed with installing an SSL certificate for your website? It’s best to consider these things before you purchase SSL certificates to make sure you get the right one for your business.

Each IP address needs its own SSL

Each SSL certificate is connected to a dedicated IP address. An IP address is simply a unique number identifying This is to make sure that it is your website and only your website that has been secured by the digital certificate. Check with your provider as to whether you can add a dedicated IP address to your SSL certificates for free or if it costs extra money. Most organisations selling SSL certificates provide a dedicated IP address if your account does not already have.

The system needs time to connect to your IP address

Now you have a digital certificate with a dedicated IP address, the certificate and IP address need to be attached to your secure website. This is also known as propagating and ensures that your domain name, website host and SSL certificate are all connected together. This takes some time, usually between four and eight hours.

While your website is propagating some visitors won’t be able to view it. You want to ensure that the time you decide to change the IP address of your websites isn’t a time that visitors want to use it too much. For instance don’t decide to switch to a dedicated IP address in the middle of a Flash sale.

Each cPanel account takes only one SSL certificate

The cPanel is the area in which you can change information about the hosting of your website. CPanel stands for Control Panel. Any control panel will only accept one digital certificate per panel. You will need to discuss with your hosting provider the options if you need multiple SSL certificates; for example if you have additional domains or subdomains.

Wild card SSL certificates can help

An easier way to solve the issue of one SSL certificates per cPanel account is to purchase multi domain SSL certificates or what is also known as a wildcard SSL certificates. If you have a main domain name that you want to secure through an SSL certificate and also subdomains it may be simpler to purchase a multi domain SSL certificate rather than purchasing individual certificates and setting up additional Cpanels for each one. Multi domain SSL certificates are slightly more expensive than the usual certificates however they are worth the extra expense if you had additional domains. All of your domains can be secured with the one SSL certificate showing the same dedicated IP address. This saves on both time and money particularly if you plan to expand your business in the future.

SSL certificates renew once every year

There is a one-year expiration period for SSL certificates. This is the usual amount of time a certificate is purchase for, however you can purchase certificates we’ve expiration dates many years in the future for an additional expense. It is up to the purchaser to ensure that they buy their digital certificate for the coming year before the previous one expires. This is technically the purchase of a new SSL certificate although sometimes it is referred to by providers as ‘renewing your certificate’. Processing a new SSL certificate usually takes between 24 and 48 hours, so it is highly recommended to purchase a new SSL certificate at least seven days before the expiry date, to avoid downtime if there are difficulties. Don’t want to muck around with SSL ,Cpanels and hosting questions? Call us today for a simple solution.

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