UCC SSL: When You Need SSL on Many Domains

What does this mean? The SSL certificate you bought for example dot com cannot be used for secure.example dot com or mail.example dot com.

Need SSL on multiple subdomains? The answer is wildcard SSL. This solution isn't enough for those who need SSL on multiple domains. What about them? Unified Communications Certificate (UCC) SSL is the way to go.

Contrasting Wildcard from UCC SSL

A wildcard in the certificate's Common Name lets one certificate be used on different subdomains. As an example, the Common Name *.example dot com allows you utilize one wildcard certificate for www.example dot com, transact.example dot com, or profiles.example dot com, but not on example.org, anothername dot com, or secure.anothername dot com.

The great news is that UCC SSL will function just fine in the last example. Instead of using wildcards in the Common Name, UCC SSL certificates make use of the Subject Alternative Name (SAN) on the certificate. Additional specific domains that will use a single UCC SSL certificate can be enumerated this way. One UCC SSL certificate will be sufficient for example dot com, secure.example dot com, anothername dot com, anothername.net, and onemore dot com. Certificate providers will let you add a limited number of domains or subdomains. The specific number depends on your UCC SSL package deal.

Good Things About UCC SSL

Purchasing just one UCC SSL certificate for all your domains will obviously save you a lot of money. At $150 each, a typical SSL certificate should be fine for those who only need it for a few domains, but costs will bloat to $750 in the event that you need SSL for five domains. You know you're starting to save once you need SSL on at least 3 domains when UCC SSL certificates cost only $300 each.

Some providers will charge $40 for each additional domain name on the same certificate. As a bonus by some providers, you are allowed to add a few subdomains on the UCC SSL certificate at absolutely no charge.

UCC SSL is good for another reason, and that's manageability. Most people will cringe at the thought of having to purchase, set up, and then renew annually several SSL certificates. It’s an especially daunting task to the person managing the SSL certificates and errors may easily abound. Fixing errors will cost you time, and with websites, downtime costs a lot of money. All that can't comapare to thinking about just a single UCC SSL certificate. It's a whole lot easier to manage a single certificate. Errors, in this case, become rare.


Unlike with wildcard certificates, UCC SSL certificates may be used with Extended Verification (EV). Customers and other visitors of your website will see their browser's address bar turn green. This is beneficial to you because this increases the confidence of your customers when they visit your website.

Are There Any Drawbacks?

Unfortunately, UCC certificates do have some drawbacks. Security is the first that comes to mind. By using one UCC SSL certificate, all servers hosting all domains share the same private decryption key. This means that if someone manages to compromise one of your servers and retrieve the decryption key, every on every server that uses the same certificate is also compromised.

Let's say the UCC SSL certificate is revoked. All domains that use the same certificate won't be able to properly function.