Your business may benefit from hosting multiple subdomains for your website, but managing them can be challenging. In addition to the complexity of safeguarding these subdomains with several SSL/TLS certificates, a simple alternative is available: a wildcard certificate.

The phrase “wildcard” typically refers to a symbol or character that can represent any string of letters or a space. In the case of wildcard certificates, an asterisk (*) precedes your domain name.

Why is it required to have a wildcard SSL certificate?

It requires fewer cheap wildcard SSL certificate resourcesto cover the number of subdomains linked with a domain because it has a larger net than a conventional single-domain certificate does due to the fact that it casts a wider net. When compared to alternative solutions for adding additional subdomains to existing websites, they give a great deal more freedom than those choices.

How many subdomains may be secured with a wildcard SSL certificate?

A wildcard certificate for *.ssl.com would cover multiple subdomains, including www.ssl.com, info.ssl.com, and watchoutforthatfallingpiano.ssl.com.

On the other hand, a wildcard won’t cover the “bare” core of the domain as a regular domain name would. For example, the domain names ssl.com and www.ssl.com are not protected by the subdomains *.ssl.com and *.www.ssl.com, respectively.

This applies to all of the subdomains that may be contained inside your domain. You only need to configure your wildcard certificate, and then everything will work properly.

What are the key differences between a regular SSL certificate and a wildcard SSL certificate?

Despite the fact that a wildcard certificate only has one declared domain, the notation gives it the ability to cover multiple subdomains as opposed to just one domain.

The certificates most comparable to wildcard certificates are called Subject Alternate Name (SAN) Certificates and Unified Communication Certificates (UCC). Exchange certificates and multi-domain certificates are two other names for these types of certificates.

A SAN or UC certificate can secure a maximum of 500 entries, regardless of the kind of certificate. You may be obliged to pay additional costs, depending on the pricing structure, for wildcard names (such as *.yoursite.com) or for domains that surpass a certain threshold number of registered users.

UCC certificate; am I able to utilize it with domains that use wildcards?

You can in every sense of the word, yes!

There is no valid technical justification for why wildcard domains cannot be used in UCC certificates; this restriction is completely arbitrary. In point of fact, incorporating a wildcard domain into a UCC is frequently the solution that is both the simplest to execute and the one that results in the greatest savings in terms of financial resources.