More Value for Customers with SSL Certificates at SiteGround
Following the introduction of Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates on our hosting platform, we are now launching more major upgrades in our SSL offerings. We will no longer provide Standard SSL certificates and all our customers that already bought Standard SSL will be upgraded for free to the premium Wildcard SSL. We are also dropping the price of Wildcard SSLs more than half. The range of SSL certificates offered at SiteGround will now consist of Let’s Encrypt, Wildcard and Extended Validation (EV).
The free Let’s Encrypt option
If you haven’t heard of Let’s Encrypt yet, this is a new certificate authority that works for the public benefit, supported by sponsors, and provides free domain-validated SSL certificates. We were among the first web hosting companies to back up this great project and provide the free SSL option to our customers. Let’s Encrypt can be activated with a click on any of our plans.
The Wildcard SSL will replace our previous Standard option
After our integration of Let’s Encrypt, the Standard SSL certificates that we were offering became redundant and we decided to discontinue them. In the process we will upgrade all customers who currently have Standard SSL to the premium Wildcard SSL while keeping their price unchanged. The upgrade will happen upon the renewal of each current Standard SSL. Furthermore, all new and existing owners of Wildcard SSL will benefit from a new price which is more than half cheaper (equal to the former Standard SSL price). Also now we include a 1-year-free Wildcard SSL in our GrowBig and GoGeek shared hosting plans and a free-for-life Wildcard SSL in all our Cloud hosting plans, instead of Standard SSL. The benefits of the Wildcard SSL are the included dedicated IP, the dynamic site seal and the extra convenience of using one SSL for an unlimited number of subdomains.
The EV SSL is still there for those that need advanced validation
The EV SSLs have the most advanced security validation. EV certification requires a thorough background check of the company before issuance. For comparison, the other certificates we offer are domain-validated only. EV gives extra assurance to site visitors because it also displays the company name in the address bar of the browser and company information in the certificate.
Here you can see a brief summary of the distinctions between the different certificates at SiteGround:
For more information on all SSL features, please go to What types of SSL certificates does SiteGround offer?, or check out our podcast episode about secure certificates.
Comments ( 26 )
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kenny
What is the dynamic site seal? How will we know when the standard ssl is upgraded on our sites?
Iskra Rasheva Siteground Team
The dynamic site seal is a small banner that you can place on your website and says that your site is secure. Also upon clicking on it, it shows certificate information. You can read about it here and see how it looks in the footer of the page: https://www.alphassl.com/support/ssl-site-seal.html You can also contact our Support for assistance with implementing if you need. The Standard SSLs will be upgraded upon their expiration. In the weeks before that customers will receive notifications about the upcoming upgrade.
Stephan Herby
Hi ! I have a cloud server at SiteGround with several websites hosted. How can I activate SSL for each of my customers? Is that possible?
Iskra Rasheva Siteground Team
Stephan, yes, it's possible to have SSL for each of your customers. Please contact our Support team via chat or ticket and they can guide you through the process.
Stephan Herby
Thanks Iskra, I will ! Your team IS efficient, as always :)
Rudolf
I'm a little confused here. Are you saying that the free Let's encrypt certificates will become obsolete soon and that we have to buy a wildcard certificate in the near future?
Iskra Rasheva Siteground Team
It is the paid Standard SSL that will become obsolete, not the free Let's Encrypt. We already stopped selling Standard SSL and all customers who have bought it will be gradually upgraded to Wildcard SSL.
Rudolf
Thanks for the clarification.
Shah
Oh my bad! i got my SSL from an external source this time. May i ask whats the price of the SSL along with GoGeek Plan?
Iskra Rasheva Siteground Team
Here you can find information about the pricing of the different certificates: https://www.siteground.com/ssl_certificates.htm
Steve Hoare
What customers need to know before choosing a Let's Encrypt certificate is that it will not work on Windows XP systems unless they use Firefox. This is an important consideration if your visitors are likely to be using XP. Always check your stats before making this decision.
Iskra Rasheva Siteground Team
That's a valid point, thanks for bringing it up! The good thing is that there is now a very small percentage of users that still have Windows XP. Some stats show less than 2%. But as you say - it's important to know your visitors. A full list with with browsers and OS that support Let's Encrypt is available here.
Rudolf
Steve, most online banking systems and antivirus software have forced their clients to move away from Win XP, so the percentage that persists with XP neglect-able (and probably already infected with tons of malware.). Not sure I want those folks on my sites, to be honest :-) A lot of sites don't need SSL at all, but Google has decided that everyone has to have it or else..., Hence, Let's Encrypt is a good solution.
Brian Dillard
I signed up in the past 2 weeks, and got SSL, how can I know which SSL I have?
Iskra Rasheva Siteground Team
You can see what certificate you have in your User Area > My Accounts > Extra Services tab.
sam
Is there a site seal for current Standard SSL certificates?
Iskra Rasheva Siteground Team
Yes, you can have. You can read how to get it here or our Support team can assist you.
peter
Trust me, that's a good deal!
Naveen Kumar
Hi ISKRA Rasheva yes ,in fact very good idea and it is completely true that the wildcard SSL will replace our previous standard options. very informative and nicely written.
Jerry
The "here" link gets "about:blank". My error?
Marina Yordanova Siteground Team
Please try again. It should work now!
vickya4n
A charming feature she has is her passion for bugging developers and designers until every bug is fixed.
Paul Coughlin
WordPress going to SSL as standard for recommended hosting! https://wordpress.org/news/2016/12/moving-toward-ssl/
Daniel Kanchev Siteground Team
Thanks for the comment Paul. PHP 7 is available on all of our servers and also all of our clients can install free SSL certificates via the Let's Encrypt plugin that we offer in cPanel. We are glad that WordPress pushes towards a safer and faster web. We are strong supporters of the same values and we will also work in future to make the web and WordPress sites in general safer and faster.
Mo
I want to purchase hosting and a Wildcard SSL certificate but I want to confirm the price for the Wildcard SSL certificate before I make my decision
Gabriela Andonova Siteground Team
Thanks for your interest in our services, Mo! Each of our hosting plans comes with free Let's Encrypt Wildcard SSL. After hosting is activated and domain name servers pointed over, users can install it via Site Tools. Feel free to contact our team if you have any more questions about our services and plans or need help choosing the best one for your project: https://stgrnd.co/chat
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