Buying a SSL certificate
How do I buy an SSL certificate?
A "SSL certificate" is a certified piece of evidence used by a web server to certify that server's identity. Web browsers will check the certificate to make sure the site being accessed is indeed who they say they are.
How do I get a certificate?
To obtain a certificate, the server's owner must verify through various official means that they do indeed control the server that the web site being certified lives on. The entity doing the certifying is called the "Certifying Authority", or CA.
Once the CA has verified the server owner's identity, they issue a certificate (the SSL certificate) which is then installed on the server. This certificate is checked by browsers when requesting "secure" pages (pages whose URL starts with "https"). If the certificate does not match the domain's name, the browser will issue a security warning.
How is a certificate safe?
Once a certificate is deemd "valid" by a browser, it is then used as the basis to encrypt all communication between the browser and server. Once this happens, entities trying to "listen in" on the communication between the two cannot "read" this communication any more - it is encrypted in a way that only a server and browser know how to understand.
It's as if the browser and server suddenly started talking language that they only understand - and nobody else can eaves-drop on the communication.
What??
If this all sounds complicated, don't worry. We're here to help.
If you'd like an SSL certificate installed for your server, (for example to make your Wordpress use https or make your Wordpress use SSL), we'd be happy to do it for you. We can purchase and manage your SSL certificate, install it, and configure your site to use it.