What is an SSL certificate?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a client - typically a web server (website) and a browser, or a mail server and a mail client.
SSL certificates also have a positive impact on SEO as Google reads SSL certificates as a SEO ranking signal.
Mono offers SSL certificates through the certificate authority Let’s Encrypt. The certificates are of the type Domain Validated (DV).
As a Mono partner, you're able to easily purchase SSL certificates through RAI once you've added a domain to a site. You can market these SSL certificates as an add-on product to your SMB customers and thereby raise the total revenue from existing customer accounts.
Practical support information
- The SSL certificates can be ordered through Mono's RAI system - just like domains. You can only order an SSL certificate after a domain has been registered, validated and is active on the account.
- The SSL certificate must be renewed every year (you can set them to auto-renew in RAI).
- SSL certificates cannot be moved from one domain to another.
- Getting the Mono Service team to help you add an SSL to any domain - including subdomain wildcards - incurs a setup fee.
- An SSL should always be ordered through Mono and it's not possible to move or add an external SSL certificate to a Mono site.
- If the domain exceeds 63 characters, it might create problems when adding SSL
How to order an SSL certificate
It's quick and easy to provision an SSL certificate through RAI.
See how
- Go to the Account page -> Subscriptions and click Add SSL Certificate.
- Select the domain you want to apply the certificate to.
- Select Let’s Encrypt from the dropdown.
- Fill in the required information.
- Click the Register button.
- The order will be processed and the SSL certificate will automatically be added to the website. The website will get SSL-enabled once the certificate is installed on our CDN network (this may take up to 24 hours). You may have to publish your website in order for the certificate to be activated on the site.
What is a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)?
In order to successfully provision an SSL certificate and use it on your website, a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) needs to be submitted to the Certificate Authority (in this case Let's Encrypt), who will use it to create your certificate. When adding an SSL certificate to a website through RAI, we auto-generate the CSR for you and submit it to Let's Encrypt. All we need from you is to input the country and state/province of residence of the domain owner as those pieces of information are needed in order to generate the CSR. If the domain owner's address doesn't have a state or province, you can input their city name.
In order to enable https:// redirection for the domain, you need to head into the Editor -> Settings (the three dots in the top-right corner of the interface) -> SSL certificate and tick the Enable SSL (https) box. This means that if a visitor inputs 'domain.com' in the URL address bar on their browser, they are automatically redirected to https://www.domain.com.
SSL Q&A
Q: What type of SSL certificate does Mono sell?
A: The SSL certificate is of the Domain Validation (DV) type. These are SSL certificates that verify that the certificate requestor has control over the domain.
Q: How does SSL certificates affect SEO?
A: Google has previously announced that they boost the ranking of websites with an SSL certificate added.
Q: What are the prerequisites for ordering an SSL certificate with Mono?
A: A domain must be attached to your Mono site. For domains purchased through Mono, SSL certificates are automatically installed once purchased (it might take up to 24 hours).
Q: What domain TLD's are supported with a SSL certificate?
A: We currently support Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates on the TLD's you can order in RAI. This includes most common gTLD's like .COM, .NET, .ORG and many ccTLD's.
Q: How do I setup SSL on domains not hosted by Mono?
A: For domains purchased elsewhere, the order should be placed in RAI but it's important to remember to redirect the domain to the site first. Read more here.
Q: Do SSL certificates provisioned through Mono work with external domains on IPv6?
A: If you have purchased a domain externally and added a SSL certificate to it through Mono, please make sure that you have deactivated IPv6 on your domain as Mono currently only supports IPv4. If IPv6 is activated on an externally hosted domain with a Mono-provisioned SSL certificate attached to it, the SSL will not function and return an error message. You can use an online IPv6 compatibility tester (such as this one) to check whether a website is running on IPv6 or not.
Q: What should I be aware of if I use external resources on my site where a SSL certificate is installed?
A: If you load external resources to your site, you should use https references and not http.
Q: When trying to add an SSL certificate to my domain, I get the error message "www.mydomain.com has issues". What's the problem?
A: This is most likely because the domain is hosted externally and has not been redirected properly, which means that the SSL certificate can't be installed properly. Please make sure to change the domain DNS settings as outlined here.
Q: When I try to add an SSL certificate to my domain, I get the error message "www.mydomain.com did not respond to mono check". What's wrong?
A: This is caused by the fact that your CNAME record has not been set up properly, meaning www.mydomain.com is not pointing to mydomain.com. Read how to properly set up your DNS settings for externally hosted domains here.