Ssl Certificate Question

[javaguy]

I understand that certificates are either "wildcard" or "ordinary" certificates, and that I need the (more expensive) wildcard certificate if I want it to secure my subdomains. My question is this: Is "www.****.com" considered a subdomain of ****.com? Or would a single, non-wildcard certificate secure the site regardless of whether the user types in the "www" in the url?

[MikeJ]

A single cert will only protect a single address. So www.yourtchdomain.com, if that's the url you picked up a certificate for, is the only valid url that can be used without getting a validation error.

 

You could always redirect users though that use other URL's to use that one (such as if someone types in yourtchdomain.com, redirect them to www.yourtchdomain.com). However, if they used HTTPS for that initial connection, they'll still get a certificate validation error on the first hit.

 

The wildcard will work for *.yourtchdomain.com (as well as yourtchdomain.com I believe).