Learn how to easily install a free SSL certificate on GoDaddy in six easy steps.
I’ve written this guide as recently I’ve noticed an issue with the expired SSL certificate on a client’s website hosted on GoDaddy.
I wanted to renew it through the GoDaddy cPanel account but sure enough, GoDaddy doesn’t support Let’s Encrypt out of the box like most other hosting providers, such as my personal favorite SiteGround.
However, fortunately there is a easy way to install free SSL without messing with SSH if you’re not comfortable with it.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to do it step by step and the same approach can probably be used for other hosting providers that don’t support Let’s Encrypt out of the box such as:
- HostEurope
- InMotion Hosting
- Strato
- Namecheap
How to install a free SSL certificate with ZeroSSL
Free SSL certificate can be easily installed on GoDaddy via ZeroSSL.
The process is simple, just follow this step by step guide
Step 1: Choose a domain where you want to install the free SSL certificate
Type in your domain like shown on the picture below:
Step 2: Create a free ZeroSSL account
Create a ZeroSSL account, it’s free, you just need to provide your email and password.
Step 3: Optionally secure subdomains as well
Then you’re offered to go PRO in order to create a wildcard certificate to secure the subdomains as well, or to secure another domain. You can skip that step and proceed to the next if you don’t need those options.
Step 4: Choose free option
Step after that is where they try to sell you PRO package again. You can ignore it, but you’ll have to renew the certificate each 90 days.
That’s fine for me, but you might want to go PRO to have a piece of mind for the entire year.
Step 5: Verify the domain ownership
And then after two more step where you definitely verify that you don’t want the PRO package, you are prompted to verify the domain ownership.
There are three ways to do it, email verification is probably the easiest, but I tried HTTP File upload and it worked pretty fast.
Step 6: Download the files & upload to your server
Once you’ve successfully verified the ownership, you can download the zipped files that you need to upload to your server. Here is the ZeroSSL tutorial on how install SSL certificate through cPanel.
That’s it, you’ve successfully installed free SSL certificate on GoDaddy! If you need any problems, please comment below or contact us.