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### Creating and Installing Free Self-signed SSL Certificate

If you do not want to purchase SSL certificates, but still need to secure your site, you can create a self-signed certificate and install it on your web server. This will provide data encryption; however, your customers' browsers will show warning messages telling that your certificate is not issued by a recognized authority. Thus, using self-signed certificates is not recommended as it will not instill confidence in customers, and is likely to adversely affect your online sales.

To secure your site with a self-signed SSL certificate:

1. Go to Home > SSL Certificates and click Add New Certificate.
2. Specify the certificate properties:
   - Certificate name. This will help you identify this certificate in the repository.
   - Encryption level. Choose the encryption level of your SSL certificate. We recommend that you choose a value more than 1024 bit.
   - Specify your location and organization name. The values you enter should not exceed the length of 64 symbols.
   - Specify the domain name for which you wish to generate an SSL certificate. This should be a fully qualified domain name. Example: www.your-domain.com.
   - Enter the domain administrator's e-mail address.
3. Click Self-Signed.

   Your certificate will be generated and stored in the repository.

4. Return to your Home page and click Web Hosting Settings.
5. Select the self-signed SSL certificate from the Certificate drop-down box.

   If there is no Certificate drop-down box on the screen, this means that you are on a shared hosting account; therefore, you need to upgrade your hosting package and purchase a dedicated IP address from your hosting provider.

6. Select the SSL support check box and click OK.