Obtaining a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

  • Unknown's avatar
    decisionpointiching · Member ·

    Hello,
    I am in the process of purchasing a SSL Certificate from my domain provider and they are requesting a CSR to complete the transaction. In their instructions, they stated that a CSR is generated from the software platform used by your hosting provider. As WordPress is my hosting provider, I believe your company can do this for me.

    What do I need to make this happen?

    Thanks for your help,
    Mary Kay

    WP.com: Yes
    Correct account: Yes

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • staff-totoro · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    The only sites I see on your WordPress.com account when I check on our end are listed here:

    • decisionpointiching.wordpress.com

    However, that site already has SSL and a secure HTTPS address, so is it possible you created your site under a different login that we are not able to see?  What is the URL of the site you are needing help with?

    Happy to check in our system so we can take a closer look.

  • Unknown's avatar
    decisionpointiching · Member ·

    Hello,

    Thank you for responding to my request. I have a web forwarding service set up (by Network Solutions) to the following address: decisionpointiching.com.

    Is it possible I’ll need a separate CSR for that address as well?

  • Unknown's avatar
    decisionpointiching · Member ·

    When I go directly to decisionpointiching.com, I see the site is not secure.

  • Unknown's avatar
    aisajib · Member ·

    Hi there!

    Thanks for sharing the link to your site. I see that you may have set up some sort of forwarding on your domain, as you mentioned. We provide free SSL to all domains hosted on WordPress.com. But the domain must be configured properly in order for it to get the SSL certificate.

    So first, your site will need a WordPress.com plan. You can check our plans and pricing here, but any plan you upgrade to will let you set a custom domain as the primary domain on your site.

    If you’re not sure which plan is best for you, we’d love to help! Please tell us a little bit about your site. What’s the site for, and what features do you need on your site? Is there anything specific, like an online store, that you want?

    After you’ve upgraded to one of the WordPress.com plans, you can add a domain connection. A domain connection lets you use a domain you already own with your WordPress.com site without transferring it to us. Domain connections are included with all WordPress.com plans.

    The third step is pointing the domain to your WordPress.com site. There are two ways you can do this:

    1. Change the nameservers and point the domain to WordPress.com
    2. Add the WordPress.com IPs to the domain

    Within 72 hours of doing all of the above, your domain will automatically get our SSL certificate.

  • Unknown's avatar
    decisionpointiching · Member ·

    Thank you so much for this useful information!

    I just checked out your plans and it looks like Premium might be my sweet spot. I use my site to inform visitors about my I Ching consulting practice and give them a way to contact and pay me. Right now this consulting practice is very part-time, which is okay with me, but I will want to ramp things up in a couple of years when I retire from my “day job.” That said, there are a couple of live links off the site: one to PayPal (which is how people pay me) and another that generates an email to my (email visible only to moderators and staff) email account. The PayPal link has always worked, but I have noticed that I’m receiving very few emails from the site (though I do still receive some, so I know it’s working), so will be thinking much more seriously about SEO down the road.

    But, in the meantime, if my decisionpointiching.com site is secure, I am thinking that will assuage some concerns and might result in more “stickiness” on my site.

    With this information, do you agree Premium is the way to go?

    Also, I have already paid Network Solutions to set up an SSL Certificate for me. Should I try to cancel that transaction and do it at the WordPress end, once I set up an actual paid account? Or is there a way that WordPress can supply their requested CSL once I have joined a paid plan?

    I really appreciate all this help,
    Mary Kay

  • aleone89 · Staff ·

    Hello Mary,

    I’m glad to see the information has been useful and thank you for that additional context.

    With this information, do you agree Premium is the way to go?

    I would say yes, to begin with. It doesn’t sound like you would need a fully fledged booking system as of yet, and you can still use the PayPal facility with this plan.

    You may want to consider using the PayPal block, that is accessible on the premium plan: https://wordpress.com/support/pay-with-paypal/ – this way, you visitors can pay and stay on the site.

    Also to note, if you choose to upgrade from the premium plan to the business plan at any point, we’d take into account the current subscription and so you wouldn’t be paying for anything twice.

    Also, I have already paid Network Solutions to set up an SSL Certificate for me. Should I try to cancel that transaction and do it at the WordPress end, once I set up an actual paid account? Or is there a way that WordPress can supply their requested CSL once I have joined a paid plan?

    I’d recommend attempting to cancel that transaction and getting a refund if it’s possible. We have our own way of applying an SSL certificate, and is part of all plans with WordPress.com. You wouldn’t be able an SSL from outside of WordPress.com.

    I hope this information is useful to you going forward.

  • Unknown's avatar
    decisionpointiching · Member ·

    Thank you for all this information; it was so helpful, and I did upgrade my account to Premium, so now have a secure website housed with WordPress!

    My remaining question is: I am currently paying for a “web forwarding service” with my domain provider, Network Solutions, that linked my decisionpointiching.com domain name to decisionpointiching.wordpress.com. But now that I have set up my custom domain as the primary domain on my site, I’m thinking the forwarding service is now redundant and I can cancel it?

    Thanks for your guidance on this,

    Mary Kay

  • Unknown's avatar
    aisajib · Member ·

    Hi there!

    I’m not super familiar with the way things work on Network Solutions’ end, but my guess is you don’t need to pay for a “web forwarding service.” Your domain is pointed to WordPress.com nameservers, so it’s not exactly ‘forwarding’ in technical terms.

    Just make sure that you don’t cancel the domain registration itself, as your domain is still registered with Network Solutions. If you’re unsure, I’d suggest contacting Network Solutions support to get clarity on whether you need to pay for that forwarding anymore.

    Hope that helps! Feel free to let us know if there’s anything else you need and we’ll be happy to help.

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