How To Enable SSL (HTTPS) for Your Website
Category: Web Applications
In today's digital landscape, website visitors expect secure data transfer. HTTPs ensures that the data exchanged between their browser and your website is encrypted and secure, and it also displays the familiar green lock icon. Before enabling HTTPS, you'll need to install an SSL certificate for your domain.
Step 1: Obtain an SSL Certificate
To get started, head over to your hosting control panel and navigate to My Domains > SSL Certificates. From here, you can either order a commercial SSL certificate or request a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate.
Once installed, allow up to an hour for the SSL IP propagation to complete.
Step 2: Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
After your SSL certificate is enabled, you'll need to set up a redirect to force all traffic to use the HTTPS protocol. To do this, follow these steps:
- Access Files > File Manager from your hosting control panel.
- Navigate to the root folder of your domain (usually
/www/mydomain.com/
). - If there is no .htaccess file, create one by clicking New File.
Edit the .htaccess file and add the following code at the top:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Click Save to apply the changes.
Once the redirect is set up, your website will now load securely over HTTPS, improving user trust and security.
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