HOW TO TRANSFER AN SSL CERTIFICATE TO A NEW PROVIDER

Find below how to transfer a website SSL certificate to a new provider. All the steps and instructions for moving an SSL certificate to a new company.

Brought to you by Mau, a Senior Digital Marketing Specialist and training facilitator at eDigital.

HOW TO TRANSFER AN SSL CERTIFICATE TO A NEW PROVIDER

Unaware website owners pay ridiculous amounts for SSL certificates.

Once they realise how badly they have been ripped off, then they want to know how to transfer an SSL certificate to a new provider.

Yes, that’s right!

If you are tech-savvy, you can even get and install your SSL for free.

I am not that savvy to install it so I have just been transferring my SSL to the best cheapest deal possible.

TRANSFERRING AN SSL CERTIFICATE TO A NEW PROVIDER – STEPS

Follow the below steps:

  1. Pay your new SSL at least 3 days in advance before your current website SSL certificate expires. The cheapest option is ssl.com which gives you a new SSL certificate for only USD$3.95 a year if you pay for 5 years. Surely this deal is far cheaper than any other SSL certificate provider in Australia.
  2. Ask your current hosting provider to
    • Generate a CSR file that will work for both “non-www” and “www” versions of your site
    • Provide you with the server software name.
  3. Forward that email with the above info (do not copy-paste as it may bring some bad formatting and the code will not work) to your new SSL provider.
  4. For your new SSL provider to verify the ownership of your site, you will need to have an email address such as admin@, administrator@, hostmaster@, postmaster@ or webmaster@
  5. Your new SSL provider will send you an email  – to the address you provided in step 4 – for you to confirm the new SSL certification.
Approval request email for new SSL Certificate

Approval request email for new SSL Certificate

  1. Once the new SSL certificate has been approved by you, your new SSL provider will create an SSL certificate code for you to forward to your hosting provider.
  2. Your hosting provider will then install your new SSL certification on your site.
  3. Your website should now have your new SSL certificate implemented. You can check this by clicking on the padlock on the browser box on the left of your domain URL.
  4. Check all SLL security headers are properly installed on the .”htaccess” file. If you have a WordPress site, you will get a warning as per below.
Not all recommended security headers are installed WordPress warning SSL

Not all recommended security headers are installed WordPress warning SSL

  1. Viola! You have successfully transferred your SSL to your new provider.

TIPS AND NOTES

Some hosting companies in Australia will make it extremely difficult for you to transfer your SSL. We had a massive battle with Crazydomains trying to get a valid CRS file over three long days. As soon as our SSL certificate expired with crazy domains, all our visitors were getting a security alert from all browsers saying our website was not secure as we were still fighting to get the right CSR file from Crazydomains.

It was a sour taste for 3 days plus the loss of hundreds of visitors, customers and revenue.

If done right, the process should be done in less than an hour, but as I said, Crazydomains will make it almost impossible to help you by providing invalid/incorrect CSR files.

If you are looking for both hosting and an SSL certificate, the best is to have both with one company for easy management. Another option is to use a free SSL certificate but you will need to do the implementation.

Hope this info helps you and if you have a question you can always contact me.

REACTIVATION STEPS

I got a five-year deal for an SSL certificate, however – for some odd reason – I have to reactivate the SSL every year (obviously for free). Below are the steps:

  1. SSLs.com will send you two reactivation notice emails. The first email 15 days before the reactivation date; and the second, 7 days before the reactivation date.
  2. Click on the link to reactivate the SSL.
  3. Two options will appear: Create CSR in browser and Use My CSR
  4. Choose Create CSR in browser
  5. Click on the Savekey.zip button (It will download a private key zip file). keep that zip file as you will need it to be sent to Crazy domains with another file later in the process).
  6. An “Onwards” button will appear. Click on it…
  7. You will be redirected to a page called: Confirm Domain.
  8. Three options will appear: a) Receive an email at admin@ b) Upload a validation file c) create a DNS record
  9. I chose b) Upload a validation file.
  10. A txt.file will be downloaded.
  11. Uploaded that validation txt file under: CPanel>Public_html>well-known>pki-validation
  12. Wait up to 20 minutes. 
  13. I will then receive an email on h@e confirming the new SSL has been issued.
  14. Download the new SSL certificate zip file.
  15. Before sending the two files, make sure they SSL certificate and private key matches. You can use this tool: decoder.link/matcher
     
     
  16. Send both a) the new SSL certificate zip file and b) the private key to CrazyDomains. Remind CrazyDomains to check that all SLL security headers are properly installed on the .”htaccess” file. so I do not get security warnings from WordPress.
  17. Wait for CrazyDomains to install the new SSL certificate and confirm completion to you.
  18. Repeat this same process every year. 

Need support getting your new SSL Certificate to work? Contact us

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HOW TO TRANSFER AN SSL CERTIFICATE TO A NEW PROVIDER

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