How to force SSL on your website

How to force SSL on your website

Letting your users use a non secure version of your web address is a security issue. In this post, i am going to show you 3 ways to force SSL on your site. Note: You need a valid SSL before implementing this. You can buy one here. If you are one of our Web Hosting customers, there is no need to buy one since we have Auto SSl- free with every web hosting account. An SSL Certificate is so important. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure while SSL stands for Secure Socket Layers. In short, HTTPS allows visitor’s browser to establish a secure connection with your hosting server (and therefore, your site). The HTTPS protocol is secured via SSL.

 

1: .htaccess Method

Access the files of your site and locate the .htaccess file. Open the file and add the following code:

 

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

 

Done. You are good to go.

 

2: cPanel Redirects

 

To force ssl using cPanel redirects, simply access you cPanel control panel and locate the redirects section. Set type to permanent 301 and next to ‘redirects to’, enter your website’s web address using the SSL version eg: https://yousite.com. I recommend having a redirect without ‘www’. Also ensure that wildcard is selected. Click add and congrats!

 

#3: Really Simple SSL WordPress plugin

 

Probably the easiest way for WordPress users. All you need to do is install and activate the plugin : https://wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/ and it will do the rest.