Having an SSL certificate on your website (showing HTTPS in the browser for your web address) is essential not only for encrypting your customers’ data but also giving your users (including search engines!) confidence when viewing your website.
Until a few years ago, if you weren’t collecting information from people using your site, it didn’t matter too much if you didn’t have an SSL. Now if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, someone trying to look at your website could be seeing one of these:
In 2015, Google announced that it would give higher search rankings to websites that included HTTPS, and now web browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are showing warnings about websites without HTTPS.
At Eco Web Hosting, we provide four types of SSL certificates. These are Extended Verification SSL, Domain Validation Wildcard SSL, Standard SSL, and Let’s Encrypt SSL.
Extended Verification (EV) SSL
The EV SSL provides the highest level of authentication, where the applicant must be able to provide proof that their company or organisation has been legally registered.
An EV SSL certificate also comes with a $1,500,000 warranty which covers against loss of money when submitting a payment on the website. An EV SSL certificate is valid for 12 months once it has been issued. EV SSL certificates are ideal for the following types of websites:
- Registered companies and organisations
- Large e-commerce websites
- Any website that wants to offer extra peace of mind to end users
Standard SSL
A Standard SSL certificate is ideal for websites that take occasional payments online. There’s a standard padlock on the website that shows the site is secure. A Standard SSL is valid for 12 months once issued and comes with a $10,000 warranty.
The Standard SSL is ideal for the following websites:
- Small e-commerce websites
- Growing websites where you want to show that the SSL certificate is from a reputed vendor
- Domains where you can’t use Eco Web Hosting’s Let’s Encrypt SSL offering (such as not being able to use our nameservers)
Domain Validation (DV) Wildcard SSL
A DV Wildcard SSL gives you the same encryption and protection as the Standard SSL, but for any and all subdomains you have. So, for example, if you have shop.domain.com, blog.support.com, and support.domain.com, all of them can be protected under the same DV Wildcard SSL. The DV Wildcard SSL is valid for 12 months once issued and comes with a $10,000 warranty.
The DV Wildcard SSL is ideal for the following websites:
- E-commerce websites with a separate shop subdomain
- Community sites where each person has a subdomain
- Sites with a staging or testing subdomain.
Let’s Encrypt SSL
The free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate is our entry-level SSL. If your domain is on our nameservers, you can use Let’s Encrypt and activate it in the web hosting control panel for your website.
The free Let’s Encrypt certificate is valid for 3 months once applied and will be automatically renewed. Let’s Encrypt is ideal for:
- Information and brochure-type websites
- Blogs
- Simple sites where you want the SEO boost
If you can’t set the nameservers to Eco Web Hosting’s nameservers, you can still secure your website by purchasing a Standard SSL certificate.
You can buy your SSL certificate through your Eco Web Hosting account on the Manage Subscriptions page. Scroll down to SSL Certificates and choose the domain you want to purchase one for. And if you’re still unsure what type of SSL certificate would be suitable for your website, please get in touch with us, and we’ll be more than happy to help!
