Bluehost SSL – Bluehost Secure Sockets Layer and certificates

It is very important for any e-commerce sites, or any other sites that collect sensitive personal or financial information to use secure connection between the host and the web server. SSL is the Secure Socket Layer protocol which is responsible for creating secure communication between client and server. In an unsecured website, the data is transmitted in plain text and someone may intercept the data traveling and steal it or change it. SSL certificate turns the data into random letters, numbers and symbols and transmit to the server. In addition to encrypting the data, the SSL certificate also issues a key that can decode the message. Only the program or server that has the proper key can turn the encrypted information back into usable information.

Bluehost provides a free Shared SSL certificate with their hosting. The shared SSL Certificate can only be used if your account is on a shared IP address. Your secured pages would appear something like this: https://secure.bluehost.com/~yourunixusername. The yourunixusername is the 8 character username of your Bluehost account as listed in the cPanel on the left side.

You can also use a private SSL Certificate specifically created for your primary domain. SSL Certificates can only be installed for your PRIMARY domain. Since SSL Certificates are Domain/IP specific, you must first Purchase a Dedicated IP before installing SSL Certificate.

You can either purchase a Comodo trusted Private SSL Certificate via your Bluehost cPanel or install a trusted 3rd party Private SSL Certificate. Here are the benefits if you order SSL certificate via bluehost.com:

1. Instant validation & Automatic Installation
2. Domain Validated Certificate Issued by Comodo
3. Site Seal – Ability to display a special icon on your page validating that your site is secure.
4. 128/256 bit encryption – Supports highest security 256 bit encryption, while remaining backwards-compatible with older browsers that only support 128 bit encryption.
5. Unlimited Re-Issuance Policy