SSL Certificate
Definition
An SSL certificate (technically a TLS certificate today) is the credential that lets a website serve pages over HTTPS, encrypting traffic between the visitor and the server and proving the site's identity. Browsers mark sites without one as not secure, payment providers require one, and search engines prefer HTTPS. Certificates expire and must be renewed, which is where self-hosted stores most often slip.
Why it matters for your store
Nobody enters an address or a card on a page their browser calls "not secure." HTTPS is the baseline for trust, a requirement of every payment provider, and a ranking factor. It also protects the customer's session on public Wi-Fi.
The risk is not getting a certificate; it is keeping one. Certificates are issued for limited periods, and a missed renewal takes the store down with a warning page in the middle of a campaign. On self-hosted stores this is one of the most common causes of unplanned downtime.
How Kambloo handles it
Kambloo issues and renews certificates automatically through Cloudflare. Test stores on their kambloo.com address are served over HTTPS from the start. When you connect your own domain in the go-live wizard, a certificate is issued for it as soon as the DNS record is verified, and the wizard shows the progress. Renewal happens before expiry with no action from you, and certificate status is tracked continuously.
Traffic between Cloudflare and Kambloo's servers is also encrypted and authenticated, so the origin accepts connections only from Cloudflare. Together with the payment providers' hosted card forms, this keeps card data encrypted end to end and the store within PCI DSS SAQ-A scope.
Questions about SSL Certificate
Do I need to buy an SSL certificate for my store?
Not on Kambloo. A certificate is issued for your domain automatically when it is connected and renewed automatically before it expires. There is nothing to buy, install, or remember.
What does a visitor see if a certificate has expired?
A full-page browser warning that the site is not secure, which most visitors will not click through. An expired certificate on a store is effectively an outage.