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Creating and Installing Free Self-signed SSL Certificate

If you do not feel like paying money for SSL certificates, but still need to secure your site, you can create a self-signed certificate and install it on your web server. This will provide data encryption; however, your customers' browsers will show warning messages telling that your certificate is not issued by a recognized authority. Thus, using self-signed certificates is not recommended as it will not instill confidence in customers, and is likely to adversely affect your online sales.

To secure your site with a self-signed SSL certificate:

  1. On your Home page, click the Certificates icon in the Services group. A list of SSL certificates that you have in your repository will be displayed.
  2. Click btn cert_add Add New Certificate.
  3. Specify the certificate properties:
  4. Click the Self-Signed button.

    Your certificate will be generated and stored in the repository.

  5. Return to your Home page and click the Setup icon in the Hosting group.
  6. Select the self-signed SSL certificate from the Certificate drop-down box.

    If there is no Certificate drop-down box on the screen, this means that you are on a shared hosting account; therefore, you need to upgrade your hosting package and purchase a dedicated IP address from your hosting provider.

  7. Select the SSL support check box and click OK.