Wildcard SSL Certificate

A Wildcard SSL is type of SSL certificate that is meant to cover all subdomains, as well as the primary domain of a website. For instance, if your website was example.com, a wildcard would cover this domain, plus a subdomain like blog.example.com, or jobs.example.com. With an unlimited number of subdomains available, you can always add more subdomains to secure with encryption at any time.

The main difference is that standard SSL certificates are meant to cover a single domain. Whearas as wildcards cover a single domain, plus all subdomains.

If you have or are planning to have a few to multiple subdomains on your site, then it may make sense to get one. The Wildcard SSL certificate eliminates the need to purchase multiple individual SSL’s to install on each subdomain of your website, which not only takes more time, but can be quite costly.

More and more, search engines are placing a focus on showing search results with sites that are trusted and secure. Because of this, search engines tend to favor and rank sites higher that are secure and safe for visitors. When a website has an SSL installed, this shows a sign of trust and validity to both search engines and people. Not to mention, serving a site over HTTPS is actually one of many ranking factors for SEO.

It really just depends. If you only need to secure one or two subdomains, then it may be more cost efficient to purchase multiple certificates. However, if you have more than a few subdomains or are planning to add more in the future, then you would probably end up saving more money with an option that cover unlimited subdomains.