Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol for website security. It protects online communication and transactions using the strongest encryption available. An SSL certificate validates the identity of your website, rather like a passport. Once activated it displays a padlock icon and https:// in your URL. These trust indicators let your customers know that your site is genuine, protected, and private.

As an online retailer, it’s your duty to protect the information that your customers share with you. An SSL certificate on your website scrambles or encrypts the traffic between a web server and a web browser. This means your customers' personal information is secure. Without SSL, any computer can intercept and steal credit card numbers, usernames, and passwords.

Google has stated that HTTPS will be a ranking signal. Excellent news - it means your website’s page ranking will be boosted if you have an SSL certificate.

All of them, but some sites are more vulnerable than others such as financial institutions, big-name brands, and government entities. You must use SSL protection if your website is PCI compliant and accepts payment cards, or does any of the following:

• Banking sites asking for financial information.
• If your website accepts payment cards (American Express, Diners Club International, MasterCard, Visa. Including credit, debit, prepaid, and gift cards), you have to comply with the credit card associations' rules about data security. The goal being to protect cardholder data. This has been standardised under the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). If you don’t use an SSL certificate on your website, you won’t be complying with the PCI standards.
• Your website asks customers to provide personal or sensitive information such as email addresses, social security numbers, medical records, and passport numbers.
• You have login forms on your website asking users to enter their username and password.
• Your site provides webmail where users can login and read email in a secure environment.
• There are subscription pages for newsletters, mailing lists, etc.

The wildcard applies to the InstantSSL DV, Domain, and Organisation SSL certificates. The certificates are issued for the domain name specified in the initial application. If you buy a wildcard with one of these three certificates, it means that the common name specified is *.yourdomainname.com. You can then use the certificate on an unlimited number of subdomains and servers. You also have the option to add in the future.

If you need to secure multiple subdomains on a single domain name, you can buy a wildcard. For a wildcard SSL certificate, a common name of *.yourdomainname.com would secure www.yourdomainname.com, mail.yourdomainname.com, secure.yourdomainname.com, etc...

ACME (Automated Certificate Management Environment) enables SSL certificates to be issued, installed, renewed, and replaced automatically—without human intervention.
Sectigo ACME SSL certificates:

- Eliminate manual certificate requests and renewals.
- Prevent downtime caused by expired certificates.
- Ensure continuous HTTPS protection.
- Scale easily across domains and servers.

This makes ACME-based SSL ideal for businesses, developers, and hosting environments where reliability and automation are critical.

In ACME-based SSL, CSR generation and certificate requests are handled automatically by your system or hosting platform.
You don’t need to manually create, submit, or manage CSRs. Keys are generated securely, and certificates are issued and renewed in the background—reducing configuration errors and improving security.

It’s because the audit and validation process for the EV SSL certificate isn’t automated and the background checks are meticulous. It’s the price you pay for super-protection, but it’s worth it.

Yes, Sectigo SSL certificates are trusted by all major browsers and operating systems. Sectigo is a well-recognized Certificate Authority (CA) that adheres to stringent security standards, ensuring that your website remains secure and trusted by users globally.

A warranty for an SSL certificate is a financial guarantee provided by the Certificate Authority (CA) that covers certain damages or losses if the SSL certificate fails to function as expected. This warranty typically includes:

• Coverage: It often covers financial losses resulting from security breaches or fraud due to certificate mis-issuance or failure.
• Amount: The warranty amount can vary depending on the CA and the type of certificate, ranging from thousands to millions of dollars.
• Terms: Specific conditions and procedures must be followed to claim the warranty, including proof of the breach and that it resulted from the certificate's failure.

Certificate as a Service (CaaS) is a fully automated SSL/TLS subscription that handles certificate issuance, renewal, and rotation for you. It's another term used to describe certificates that follow the ACME protocol.

You can remove a domain from your ACME SSL subscription at any time.

• Removing a domain will not generate a refund.  
• If the same domain is added again later, it will be treated as a new domain and billed accordingly.  
• Upon renewal, the subscription will reflect the updated number of domains (i.e., one fewer domain).  

We recommend reviewing your domain list before renewal to ensure your subscription matches your current needs.

Yes. 
The ACME protocol does not perform organization validation itself, but it can be used to issue an Organization Validation (OV) certificate once the company has been validated by the certificate authority.

To use OV certificates with ACME:

• An ACME SSL OV subscription is required.  
• Your organization must be validated before configuring the ACME account.  
• Once validated, certificate issuance and renewal can be automated via ACME.  

This means OV certificates benefit from the same automation capabilities as DV certificates. 

Organization validation for OV certificates is typically done once per year, just like traditional (manual) OV SSL certificates issued by Sectigo. This annual validation requirement does not affect ACME automation. Once the organization is validated, certificate issuance and renewal continue automatically through the ACME workflow.

A SAN certificate is a multi-domain SSL/TLS certificate. It allows you to secure multiple domains and subdomains with a single certificate.

An ACME certificate automation subscription is not a type of certificate. It is an automated service based on the ACME protocol for issuing and renewing SSL certificates. Its pricing depends on the number of domains covered, not on each individual certificate.

Yes. For Sectigo certificates issued via ACME, EAB is required for both DV and OV subscriptions. It enables a secure connection between your ACME client and your account using pre-registered credentials. Your EAB details will be available in your dashboard once your license token is activated.