The SSL Wildcard Certificates are a great help when you need to protect the multi-subdomains within the same domain name. Standard single domain SSL can protect a domain or its subdomain, for example, domain.tld OR sub.domain.tld
However, modern infrastructure includes multiple services that use their own subdomains. When you need to protect only a few sub-domains and you already know their names, you need to select multi-domain SSL (SAN) certificates. However, take SSL Wildcard certificates when you have many sub-domains and you may not know all the sub-domains at the moment.
The Wildcard SSL certificate protects an unlimited number of subdomains, but only for the next domain level. If you order by * .domain.tld, this means that SSL will protect the domain.tld (base domain) and all its subdomains (next level), like any domain.tld, mail.domain.tld etc., but NOT * . *. domain.tld. Basically, double jokers don’t exist, like EV jokers.
It is also possible to use the Wildcard SSL for mail and exchange servers, since most modern software can work with them as with the UCC (Unified Communication SSL certificates) SSL certificates.
There is also a new type of Wildcard certs called Multi-Domain Wildcard certificates. They are able to protect up to 250 different wildcard domains, which means unlimited subdomains under 250 domains. Most of our Wildcard certificates also come with unlimited server licenses, so you can install different variations of subdomains on different servers and IP addresses.