Can I have a SSL certificate for a domain name that redirects?

Question

I have registered a domain name only for forwarding users to my original website.

www.secondarydomain.example -> www.primarydomain.example

I already have a SSL certificate for my primary domain. The redirects for http://www.secondarydomain.example forward to https://www.primarydomain.example, the way that I expect.

But if the user goes to https://www.secondarydomain.example, it throws an error. I'd like to get an SSL certificate and ensure that the HTTPS version of the secondary domain gets redirected to the primary domain as well.

My host for my primary domain doesn't allow me to add any more domains to my account. What can I do ?

Solution

Yes, you can. Either buy multi-domain certificate if it's close to the end of primary domain certificate, or buy the certificate for the secondary domain only.

My host for my primary domain doesn't allow me to add any more domains to my account. What can I do ?

Anyway you have somewhere redirect configured from secondary to primary. If it is just redirect and doesn't allow you to add a certificate - you need another hosting for the secondary. The certificate should be added in the same or similar way like you did for the primary. Eventually, you can consider secondary as an empty website which contains nothing but redirect, and buy the cheapest hosting which allows you to add an certificate.

Comments

[Stephen Ostermiller]

You have hosting for your secondary domain. Without hosting users would get a "host not found" error. You have set up redirects. That means that you have some host for that redirect. I've edited your post to reflect that.

[Stephen Ostermiller]

It sounds like they already have a rule like this in place. The redirect is working but they are getting an error saying that the security certificate is invalid when they access the redirect domain over HTTPS.