- Would your website lose visitors
if it lacked SSL security?
Of course it would.
Even those of us who are technologically challenged
are at least aware of the padlock in the URL bar,
especially if you're about to whip out a credit card
and buy something.
But as a website owner, do you understand the importance
of properly installing and managing your SSL certificate?
- SSLs are issued by Certificate Authority
like GoDaddy and they're responsible
for following predefined procedures
for the issuance of SSL certificates.
However, unless you're paying a professional
to handle it all for you,
here are five common issues to watch out for.
- Starting off with faulty installation.
Most SSL issues happen during installation
and the handoff of information.
Information like incorrect email addresses
and security keys can create problems
including domain verification.
I mean, to verify the owner of a domain
that SSL is protecting,
an email gets sent out to an address
specified for of that domain.
If the email address isn't recorded or accessible
the domain remains unverified
and the SSL can't be installed.
- Let's talk about code implementation.
An alternative verification method involves inserting
a code from the SSL provider into the DNS TXT
record of the domain.
Now issues arise when one person purchases the SSL
but doesn't hand off the correct verification code
to the person installing it.
- And then there's name matching.
A wildcard SSL can be used to secure
not only a website's primary domain,
but also any subdomains a client has.
If all subdomains aren't supplied to before installation
it's a complicated process to go back and add them.
And these are just a few of the most common SSL issues
that come up during the installation.
- Now it's important to note most browsers
won't trust an SSL if it has a life span
of more than 398 days.
So the certificate needs to be renewed
before that timeframe runs out
and website owners who avoid auto-renewal
might forget, then guess what's gonna happen?
The certificate will expire.
- Then we have HTTPS redirects.
Moving a site onto SSL should involve redirecting
all the old URLs to those on HTTPS.
It can be a problem if the redirected URL
isn't exactly what a visitor types.
For example, if a frequent shopper
has bookmark your domain.com skipping the www,
they're gonna have a problem getting to your website
after you've moved the site.
This produces a warning that can result in lost traffic,
but the fix is easy enough.
- Now let's talk about Google site mapping,
SSL issues with the site map
can come up when moving an unencrypted website onto HTTPS,
working through all those redirects
make it easy to forget,
to update the site map with HTTPS prefixes.
But it can ding a site's SEO if Google crawls a sitemap
where the pages are still using HTTP.
And the old site map needs to be downloaded.
And the links updated to HTTPS with a simple,
find and replace,
and then upload it back to the website's route folder.
And the sooner this gets done
the quicker those URLs get indexed,
which means better SEO.
- On WordPress many plugins are available
to create site maps.
And these often can update to HTTPS automatically.
Not always though, if a plugin won't update
the sitemap to HTTPS,
the best resource is that developers help form
or just recreating a site map manually.
Now, one of probably the most problemsome issues
when it comes to SSL is the mixed content warning.
I run into this all the time.
When a webpage is set up properly with an SSL
but pulls content such as an image, iframe,
JavaScript or even just a link to another site
from an unencrypted source.
So HTTP://, it'll give an error when it tries to load
and all it takes is one single item on the page.
If you're creating content on your website
that pulls an image that aren't stored on SSL
it will be very bad for business.
Every link to the content you try to publish
would display an error
rather than the images of your delicious culinary creation
or a gorgeous mid-century modern property
your photographer shared from an unencrypted database.
One of my favorite resources for this is whynopadlock.com.
You just pop in your website and it'll scan through
and show you what's not being called securely
so you can make that quick fix.
Nice and easy.
- With the importance search engines now place
on SSL certificates,
it's easy to assume they are already included
in the process of building a website.
In some situations. yeah, they are, but SSL issues
can easily take up time and become a giant pain in the butt.
So many make sure you double
or triple check that your SSL is taken care of.
- Thankfully professional can,
and in some cases should handle the process
end to end from purchase to final install.
Experienced experts, handle installations, and maintenance
are always just a phone call away.
It's a small investment for big peace of mind
knowing your website remains encrypted
and a good standing when visitors arrive.
But that's a wrap.
Your journey does not have to end here though
because we have over 300 videos for you to keep on watching.
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Hey, thanks for watching.
This is The Journey.