What is  Wildcard SAN Certificate  and What Are Key Advantages?

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Does your organization own and manage multiple fully qualified domains (FQDN) and subdomains? If so, getting individual SSL certificates for each of them will be extremely expensive and difficult to manage. 

That’s where the Wildcard SAN Certificate comes in. 

An SSL SAN Certificate is the perfect certificate for those who want a simplified SSL infrastructure for all of their domains and subdomains. In this article, we discuss what is Wildcard SAN Certificate and what are their key advantages. 

What is Multi-Domain Wildcard SAN Certificate?

Wildcard SAN SSL is one in which you can secure a multiple fully qualified domains (FQDN) and subdomains with a single certificate. For example, the same certificate can secure blog.website.com, mail.website.com, blog.domain.com, mail.domain.com, or any other subdomains or primary domains.

Depending on the CA, a Wildcard SAN SSL can secure 25, 100, or even 250 domains and all accompanying subdomains simultaneously.

How Multi-Domain Wildcard SSL Works

A Multi-Domain Wildcard SSL is used to secure both FQDNs and wildcard domain names within SAN entries. 

Let’s say the common name of a website is website.com. In that case, you can create the following SAN entries: 

*.domain.org 

www.education.net 

*.mail.website.com 

website.edu 

It’s the perfect SSL for the following situations:

  • If you want to also secure the wildcard version of a common name. This can be done with an additional SAN. 
  • If you want to remove or add any domain or subdomain easily. You can do so by removing or adding them any time within the validity period. 

A few points to note regarding Multi-Domain Wildcard SSL:

  • All the domains are related to a single certificate. 
  • It doesn’t automatically secure the non-www version of the primary domain. 
  • It is only available on DV and OV certificates. 
  • You must specifically mention if you want to cover the wildcard version of the Common Name. 

Advantages of SSL SAN Wildcard 

The following are some of the prime advantages of SSL SAN Wildcard certificates:

  • Extremely flexible — you can cover multiple domains and subdomains. The exact number of maximum domains depends on the CA.
  • It’s far cheaper than buying all the SSL certificates individually. 
  • You have to go through the vetting process only once for all the domains and subdomains, making it time-efficient. 
  • Both DV (Domain Validated) and OV (Organization Validated) Multi-Domain Wildcard SAN certificates are available. 
  • Cuts down administrative costs. 
  • SSL San Wildcard is a future-proof solution. As you acquire more domains and subdomains, you can secure them with the same certificate without further vetting.  

Get An SSL Certificate For Multiple Domains & Sub-domains – Save 78%

At RapidSSLOnline we offer DV and OV Wildcard SSL and Multi-Domain Wildcard SSL certificates at an incredibly discounted rate, starting from only $118.36/yr. We offer a 30-day money back guarantee and 24/7 support to help you implement your SSL certificate.

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Which is the Best SAN Certificate with Wildcard?

GeoTrust Wildcard SAN Certificate is the best SAN certificate with a wildcard on the market. GeoTrust provides unlimited server licensing so all of the subdomains and domains can also be hosted on different servers. 

The following are some of the key features of a GeoTrust Wildcard SAN Certificate.

  • Unified Solution: Companies with multiple websites and domains find it hard to acquire (and then keep track of) individual SSLs for all the domains. In this case, a GeoTrust Wildcard SAN certificate allows them to handle all of them from a single location by purchasing a single certificate.
  • 250 Additional Domains: Most CAs allow you to secure up to 100 additional primary domains. However, with GeoTrust SSL SAN Wildcard, you can secure up to 250 additional domains and unlimited subdomains. This makes GeoTrust far more reliable and worthwhile in the long run, once you expand past 100 domains.
  • Industry-Leading Encryption: GeoTrust SSL SAN Wildcard provides industry-leading 256-bit encryption and 2048-bit root key. This assures all your visitors that your website is trustworthy enough to share private information with.
  • Quick Issuance: You can verify your domains quickly, within minutes. There’s no paperwork necessary and you don’t have a long wait period. 
  • Site Seal: GeoTrust SSL SAN Wildcard also comes with a secure site seal for your websites so all of your visitors know that you’re secured. This increases site conversions and increases your company’s trust and reliability.
  • Recognition Rate: GeoTrust SSL SAN Wildcard has a mobile and desktop browser recognition of over 99.9%, which means your SSL certificate will always be recognized regardless of the browser.
  • Warranty: GeoTrust SSL SAN Wildcard comes with a warranty of up to $250,000.
  • Support: Comodo provides industry-leading 24/7 support in over 10 languages.
  • Trustworthiness: GeoTrust is one of the world’s most trustworthy certificate authorities.

As you can see, GeoTrust is clearly the ideal CA for SSL SAN Wildcard certificates.

If you’re concerned about the cost of a multi-domain wildcard SSL, don’t be! 

At RapidSSLOnline, we offer OV Wildcard SSL and Multi-Domain Wildcard SSL certificates at an incredibly discounted rate, starting from only $129.00/yr.