How do I get a free SSL certificate for WordPress?
Install the free SSL Zen plugin, enter your domain and email, verify domain ownership with a one-time DNS record or file upload, then install and activate the free Let’s Encrypt® SSL certificate — no coding required. Your WordPress site will be served over HTTPS with a valid padlock in minutes, and SSL Zen fixes mixed-content warnings and redirects HTTP to HTTPS for you.
How do I fix “Not Secure” or mixed content warnings in WordPress?
SSL Zen installs a free SSL certificate, forces HTTPS on every page, and automatically rewrites insecure HTTP resources to HTTPS so the “Not Secure” warning and mixed-content errors disappear. No manual code edits needed.
What is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts information sent to the server using SSL technology.
Are your SSL certificates really free?
Yes. All SSL certificates are generated by Let’s Encrypt® (nonprofit) with a mission to create a more secure and privacy-respecting Web by promoting the widespread adoption of HTTPS.
What benefits does an SSL certificate provide?
An SSL Certificate protects your customers’ sensitive information such as their name, address, password, or credit card number by encrypting the data during transmission from their computer to your web server.
How do I install my SSL certificate?
If you are using the free version of the plugin, you will be able to download the SSL certificate. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the SSL certificate on your web server or hosting panel.
How long are the SSL certificates valid?
Let’s Encrypt® SSL certificates are valid for 90 days and can be renewed at no additional cost. You can easily renew your SSL certificate through our plugin.
How do I renew an SSL certificate?
Simply follow the same process you used to generate and install the SSL certificate the first time and your SSL certificate will be renewed.
Do I need technical knowledge to set up an SSL certificate?
We’ve made the process of generating and installing the SSL certificate extremely easy. All you have to do is follow our simple step-by-step guide.
Is your SSL certificate plugin safe to install on my website?
Our plugin is open-source and anyone can download and inspect it before installing it on their website.
Do you support Wildcard SSL?
We currently do not support wildcard SSL. Our plugin is only built to generate an SSL certificate for your WordPress website/blog.
Which browsers will trust Lets Encrypt’s SSL certificate?
SSL certificates generated by Let’s Encrypt are trusted and supported by all major browsers.
Do I need to do the verification again when I want to renew my free SSL certificate?
The verification results are valid, at the time of writing, for 30 days. If you renew within that period, you should not need to re-verify. Outside of that period, you will need to do the verification again. However, it is a very simple process that requires almost no time.
I have installed the SSL certificate correctly, but my site is still “Not Secure”
The most likely reason for this is that you are still loading some resources, such as images for example, via HTTP. Browsers in this case will show “Mixed content” errors in the developers’ console. If you do not want to use developer tools, you can easily check which resources those might be by using “Why No Padlock?” service. You can read more about “Mixed Content” and how to prevent it here .
Can I see the name of my company on the SSL certificate?
Free SSL certificates are of Domain Validation type (DV) and do not hold that information. To have the information about your company, the certificate would need to pass Organization Validation (OV) or Extended Validation (EV). Both require paperwork (such as actual company checks) and cannot be offered for free as a result.
How to safely disable SSL Zen CDN plugin
Before you decide to deactivate the SSL Zen plugin, please make sure of the following things
- 01Your website IPv4 A record for your website is pointing to your hosting server. An easy way to check this is by visiting https://www.whatsmydns.net/ and entering your website URL such as sslzen.com If the results show your website server IP address, it means you are no longer using StackPath. The opposite of this is also true. If whatsmydns.net shows your A record as 151.139.128.10, it means you are still using StackPath. We recommend you wait for a couple of hours before deactivating the plugin.
- 02Similar to the A record, you also need to change your CNAME record for the www subdomain. Make sure your CNAME record with host www is pointing to your domain name. For example, for the domain name sslzen.com, the CNAME record for www would be sslzen.com. Again, you can use whatsmydns.net to check your CNAME resolution. Make sure you are selecting CNAME in the dropdown next to the text input where you enter your domain name.
Unable to login using cPanel credentials
For Cpanel Free/Pro users, after installing/uploading the plugin and activating it, at step 1 sometimes cPanel credentials are requested so that we can connect using cPanel’s web API when we are not able to use cPanel’s command line API to connect to your cPanel and verify your domain ownership. Firstly, you can verify if you have a Cpanel account by using this link :2083 or Cpanel. example: sslzen.com:2083 or cpanel.sslzen.com. If you are able to see a Cpanel login screen like below that means your hosting provider comes with Cpanel and you have a Cpanel account. Enter your credentials and see if they are valid which allows you to log in to the Cpanel account. If an error message appears, you are entering the wrong credentials. If you don’t see a similar login screen, most probably the plugin would have suggested the wrong plan.
I can’t install the free SSL certificate on the temporary Bluehost domain
SSL certificates can only be installed on your domain name. If you are trying to install the SSL certificate on a temporary Bluehost domain it won’t work. Please follow these instructions to replace your temporary domain name with your domain name. Article – https://www.bluehost.com/help/article/using-your-temporary-url-with-wordpress#changing-from-temp
Rate Limit Issue while installing free SSL certificate
While installing SSL using the SSL Zen plugin, you might encounter an error message as in the below image or a message like this on the plugin page:
“”cpanelfree.xyz” is currently affected by Let’s Encrypt-based rate limits (https://letsencrypt.org/docs/rate-limits/). You may review certificates that have already been issued by visiting https://crt.sh/?q=%your_domain. Please note that it is not possible to ask for a rate limit to be manually cleared. The Duplicate Certificate limit (5 certificates with the exact same set of domains per week) has been exceeded and is affecting the domain “cpanelfree.xyz”. The exact set of domains affected is: “cpanelfree.xyz”. It may be possible to avoid this rate limit by issuing a certificate with an additional or different domain name.”
“Not all authorizations are valid” error message at Step 2 while installing free SSL certificate using SSL Zen plugin
There might be a situation when installing an SSL certificate using the SSL Zen Free/Premium version of the plugin, you end up getting an error message that says ” Not all authorizations are valid”. There are different reasons for the cause of this error. Follow the solution that is suitable for you based on the version of the plugin you are using :
Free version /Premium version:
- 03Check if your WordPress is installed in the root folder ex: /home/bcyh6ur88/public_html/ .Here is how you can check it:
Log in to the WordPress Administrator Dashboard as an administrator. In the menu at the left, click on the Tools option. Find “Site Health” and click on it. By default, the Site Health tool immediately shows the Site Status. Click on “Info” to its immediate left at the top of the screen. Go to the WordPress Constants section. Locate ABSPATH. This is your WordPress installation path. Most of the time users end up installing their site in a sub-folder ex: cpanelfree.xyz/site . Their WordPress installation path in such cases would be: /home/bcyh6ur88/public_html/site
Due to this reason, the domain validation might fail and you’d see the “Not all authorization are valid” error message during SSL Zen Plugin setup.
To fix this, you can install your WordPress in the root folder, so that all your subfolders are covered by SSL. For ex: if you install your WordPress under this path : /home/bcyh6ur88/public_html/, it would cover all your websites sub-folders like cpanelfree.xyz/site , cpanelfree.xyz/blog , cpanelfree.xyz/contact etc.
You can get the help of your hosting provider to install your WordPress in the root folder instead of the sub-folder. Make sure you take a backup of your site before doing this change.
- 04Setup the plugin once again. In the case of the premium plugin, make sure you have uploaded the premium version of the plugin and then follow the setup process.
- 05Deactivate any other SSL plugins if you have installed and activated them. Similar SSL plugins may conflict with the SSL Zen plugin and the above error would be thrown.
