How to Get Free SSL Certificate For Website

Looking for free SSL certificate for website? Ok, I will help you to get an SSL certificate for your website for free. I will not ask you to pay anything to the company which will issue the certificate for your website.

Website security is a very important thing, and in that, if you run an e-commerce website or you collect user’s data then you should have an SSL certificate installed on your server.

When you have SSL certificate on your server the data which travels to your server from the user side stays safe. No one can steal the data transferring or traveling between your user and your server.

If you have a personal website and you don’t ask your users to enter confidential data then you can use the free SSL certificate for website.

But in case you are running an e-commerce website then please keep in mind you should consider buying an SSL certificate. Because you can’t keep your user’s data like credit card etc. in danger zone.

Even the free SSL is configured in the right way to protect the user data which transfers between the user and server. But if you go with a paid one like Comodo, Verisign, Entrust, those are more reliable than the free SSL certificate for website.

Many people refuse to buy things online from a website because of security reason and this is why the e-commerce website owners get good quality SSL for their business.

Some of the bloggers don’t like investing more on their website and some need a free SSL certificate for website because they are testing it. There are many websites online which are issuing certificates free of cost but those certificates are not trusted by all the browsers.

Now, what is this?

Trust is a very important thing, and if you have an SSL certificate which is not trusted or recognized by the web browser. Then the browser will tell the user that “Their Security is at Risk” or “Your Connection is Not Private”.

What next? The user just clicks on the back button and you lost the visit and the business which you were going to get from that user. But I will tell you how you can get free SSL certificate for website which is trusted by 99.9% of the browser.

Before that let us check out how SSL certificate works.

What is SSL Certificate and How it Works?

SSL Certificates are small data files which are digitally bound by a cryptographic key. When this data file is installed on your web server they will activate padlock and HTTPS protocol which will ensure that once a secured connection is established. The data transferred or web traffic between browser and server is fully secured.

When you install an SSL Certificate on your server and a visitor makes a request to your server through his or her web browser. There are many processes which will take place like a handshake, key exchange etc. I have embedded an image below which will explain you the working of SSL.

Because of the extra process which SSL secure connection makes, this will use some extra server resources and will slow down your website a bit. But you can save some server resources by enabling hotlink protection for your server.

How to Get Free SSL Certificate For Website?

So now let us get started with this guide and check out how you can get free SSL certificate for website. I will tell you how you can get free SSL certificate for website from Let’s Encrypt.

What is Let’s Encrypt?

Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority (CA), run for the public’s benefit. It is a service provided by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG).

We give people the digital certificates they need in order to enable HTTPS (SSL/TLS) for websites, for free, in the most user-friendly way we can. We do this because we want to create a more secure and privacy-respecting Web.

The SSL certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt are trusted by almost all the web browsers. Which means you are not going to lose any of your visits due to browser warnings.

There are many web hosting providers who support Let’s Encrypt certificates and you can get it installed directly from your cPanel itself.

You will have to contact your web hosting provider to know if they can help you install the SSL issued by Let’s Encrypt.

You can’t get any certificates issued from the official website of Let’s Encrypt. Even then I will tell you how you can get your free SSL certificate for website.

We can get the certificate from Let’s Encrypt with the help of SSL For Free (www.sslforfree.com) they help you to get the certificates which are issued by Let’s Encrypt.

How to Get the Certificate For Free?

To get the free SSL certificate for website, open SSL For Free’s website. You just have to enter your domain name in the space provided there.

After entering your domain name click on Create Free SSL Certificate button.

However, you are getting the certificate issued for free but you have to verify that you are the real owner of the domain. This is done for security purpose, if they start issuing certificates without verification then they end up with troubles.

You can verify using three methods and they are as mentioned below.

• Automatic FTP Verification: You have to enter the FTP account details and the verification will be done automatically.
• Manual Verification by Uploading Files: You have to upload two files to your server by creating different folders.
• Manual Verification by DNS: You have to add TXT records at your DNS server to verify that you are the real owner of the domain name.

I prefer going with the method in which we have to upload the files on the server for verification. The choice is yours, select the method by which you would like to verify the domain name.

Once you set up the verification things, you have to click on Download SSL Certificate button which you will find at the bottom of the page.

After clicking on your Download SSL Certificate you will get your certificate files. You can copy the file and install it on your server.

That’s all you have to do to get free SSL certificate for website. But you have to keep in mind that the certificate issued by Let’s Encrypt is valid for 3 months only.

You can again get the certificate by following the same procedure you follow for the first time.

This is how you can get free SSL certificate for website. I hope you are clear with all the steps and information mentioned in this guide. If you have any kind of doubts in your mind then you can comment below.