Glossary Entry
What is Wildcard SSL?
What Wildcard SSL actually means, buzzwords removed — with the example that makes it land.
The short answer
A wildcard SSL certificate secures a domain along with all of its first-level subdomains, so *.example.com is covered by one credential.
What follows: the longer explanation, a picture that holds, the practical stakes, and the places you will genuinely meet it.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 18 August 2026
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Terms in the jargon buster
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People, if you get stuck
One credential covers app., shop., portal. and whatever somebody creates next week, names that did not exist on the day it was issued. It is that last point which sets it apart from asking for a certificate per name.
The asterisk reaches exactly one level down. Go deeper, to sub.sub.example.com, and you need a separate arrangement; in practice the certificate is issued listing the bare domain beside the wildcard so neither is left out.
The everyday parallel
One master key cut for every office on a single floor, including the ones nobody has partitioned off yet. A separate key is still wanted for the floor above.
Carry that picture with you and most documentation on the topic loses its mystery on a first read.
Why it matters to a site owner
If your architecture gives each client or tenant a subdomain, a wildcard takes certificate paperwork out of the growth path altogether. Each new subdomain appears secured, and nothing has to be requested for it.
That, incidentally, is the bar for any technical term — not 'could I lecture on it' but 'would I recognise it as the answer to my problem'. For this one, you now would.
Wildcard SSL out in the open
A reseller's portal creates client123.theirbrand.com on demand. Each instance is HTTPS-ready the moment it exists, because the wildcard already covers it and provisioning has no certificate step in it.
Entirely unremarkable once you have seen it — which is the point: most hosting ideas are plain machinery behind an intimidating label.
Where it sits inside your own account
You will meet it in the control panel and now and then in a support thread, usually already set correctly. If this one landed, the natural follow-ups are SSL Certificate, Let's Encrypt, Subdomain and HTTPS.
A copy is taken daily on every plan, and putting a file or a database back is one click in the panel rather than a support ticket.
Unexplained jargon slows everybody down
An unexplained piece of jargon is, to us, a service defect. This is the support team's collected translations, published where a search engine can hand them over on our behalf.
Hosted somewhere else already? We move the whole site at no charge, usually within 24 hours, and it goes on answering visitors throughout.
- 100+ entries, plain English all the way
- Ordinary analogies, working examples
- Neighbouring ideas linked together
- Written by our own support engineers
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
Stakes made explicit
More than what a thing is: the moments it turns out to be the answer to a problem you have.
Jargon-free by design
Definitions written for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — translation rather than restatement.
Cross-wired entries
Related terms point at each other, so one lookup compounds into working knowledge.
This term, properly landed
Wildcard SSL defined, pictured by analogy and located in your own panel — recognise-level after a single read.
Analogies that hold
Every concept comes with a mental model that returns exactly when you need it.
The next step, drawn out
Carry on into SSL Certificate and Let's Encrypt — ideas rarely travel alone, so the neighbours are linked in.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Find it in your own account
Nothing teaches a hosting term faster than finding it in your own panel; five minutes of looking beats an hour of reading.
- 2
Check the defaults as they stand
Look at how your account has it configured. Nine times in ten the default is right, and a check turns the guess into certainty.
- 3
Chase the neighbouring terms
Hosting terms travel in groups — SSL Certificate, Let's Encrypt and Subdomain finish this one's picture, each a two-minute read away.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- LiteSpeed caching in the server itself rather than bolted on by plugin
- cPanel, which is what most of the industry already runs
- PHP versions set per site from the control panel
- WordPress Toolkit, with the updates seen to for you
- SSH, Git and Composer on the developer plans
- A renewal figure identical to the one you registered at
- No set-up charge at any point, and no joining fee
- Upgrades applied in place, with no migration when you change plan
- The name's first year included when you order annually
- A daily copy, with restores you run yourself from the panel
Frequently Asked
The questions that come up most
If free SSL covers every subdomain, why buy a wildcard?
For a fixed handful of subdomains, there is no reason, since automated per-name certificates handle those perfectly. It pays for itself once subdomains start appearing on demand or by the dozen, at the point where per-name issuance becomes one more moving part waiting to stall.
Does a wildcard cover the bare domain?
Issued the way we issue them, yes, since example.com and *.example.com are both named on the certificate. Confirm it with any issuer, though, because the asterisk on its own technically would not cover the bare domain.
Can more than one website run on a single plan?
From the Turbo tier upward, yes — several sites, each with its own name, mailboxes and certificate, inside one account. If the extra sites belong to clients rather than to you, look at reseller hosting instead: it keeps each one properly walled off.
Does hosting include mail?
Yes — every hosting plan includes mailboxes at your own name, with webmail, IMAP, POP and SMTP plus spam filtering on from the start. There is standalone email hosting too, for a name whose website lives somewhere else.
Keep reading
Let's Encrypt
Let's Encrypt is the automated certificate authority that made HTTPS universal at no cost, issuing short-da…
HTTPS
Wrap ordinary HTTP in an encrypted connection and you have HTTPS, the web's standard transport, which keeps…
Best Hosting for Wildcard SSL
The same call put as a buyer's guide: what to verify, what to ignore, and the plan we would sign.
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