Creating and Installing Free Self-signed SSL Certificate

If you do not want to purchase 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. Go to Certificates and click Add New Certificate.
  2. Specify the certificate properties:
  3. Click Self-Signed.

    Your certificate will be generated and stored in the repository.

  4. Return to your Home page and click Setup in the Hosting group.
  5. 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.

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