A. A SSL certificate serves two main purposes; firstly, encrypting data to protect your customers' information, and hence secondly increasing customer confidence to increase your online traffic and sales. Anyone serious about doing business online will need a SSL certificate on their site.

A. Without a doubt. Online consumers are well aware that they should make sure a website is secure before entering their sensitive information. Without a SSL certificate you will lose traffic and sales, losing customers to sites that are secure.

A. Each certificate serves a different purpose and caters to a different type of merchant. The more that you pay the more features you have access to (e.g. Free reissuances, extended validation, dynamic site seals). The certificate that you purchase should match the level of business that you conduct online. If you are serious about your online venture you should seriously consider investing in your online security.

A. Customers' perception plays an important part of the impact of SSL certificates. If a customer recognises the issuer of the certificate as a known and trusted entity, they are more likely to feel comfortable in trusting the site that they are on. SSLStar offers SSL certificates from the Internet's leading SSL issuers - GeoTrust, Verisign, and Thawte - giving you a greater choice from known and trusted brands.

A. Industry standards recommend using at least 128-bit encryption for sites processing payments online. The higher the encryption, the harder it is to crack. For sites collecting less critical data lesser encryption levels may be appropriate, however any data entered by customers on your website should be viewed as confidential and protected as such.

A. The process of renewing your SSL certificate is the same as purchasing the initial certificate. We recommend purchasing your certificate for multiple years so you don't have to worry about it next year, as well as enjoying pro rata discounts and locking in current prices.

A. Simply purchase your certificate online and follow the instructions.

A. You will need your company and contact information, your CSR (Certificate Signing Request) and your web server type. If you are not sure of the last two items, your web host can assist you.

A. Instructions on installing your SSL certificate can be found at SSL Installation Instructions.

A. Yes! A wildcard certificate can be applied to a single domain with multiple subdomains, for example mail.domain.com, secure.domain.com, and sub.domain.com can all have the single SSL Certificate. With a wildcard SSL you can secure all these subdomains by simply securing *.domain.com, securing any subdomain you can think of. Learn how to create a wildcard CSR to start securing your domains.

A. We believe it is important to protect the end user. If we were to mis-issue a certificate to a fraudulent site, and that fraudulent site has an SSL link with an end user and as a result of this the end user loses money. The end user had what they thought was a "trusted session".