What kind of certificate should be used to manage multiple subdomains for a website?

A wildcard certificate is specifically designed to secure a primary domain and all its subdomains. It utilizes a single asterisk as a placeholder for the subdomain portion of the domain name. For example, a wildcard certificate for *.example.com would secure subdomains like blog.example.com, shop.example.com, and any other subdomain under example.com.

This is particularly beneficial for organizations or websites that have numerous subdomains, as it simplifies management by allowing one certificate to cover all of them, rather than requiring individual certificates for each subdomain. This not only streamlines the complexity of managing multiple SSL certificates but also reduces costs associated with purchasing and renewing numerous certificates.

The other options do not provide the same level of convenience for managing multiple subdomains, making the wildcard certificate the most effective choice in this scenario.