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Inspiring
July 18, 2018
Question

The SSL nightmare

  • July 18, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 6763 views

Does anyone have experience going SSL with a site with a lot of inner pages? What service did you use? Did you have to do redirects in advance to maintain you SEO search results? Thanks.

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3 replies

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 19, 2018

larry4545  wrote

What service did you use?

I used NameCheap.com and purchased a 1 year Comodo SSL.  The price was reasonable and their knowledgeable was extremely helpful.

https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/category.aspx/14/ssl-certificates

Important: Decide how many domains you need to cover with SSL.  For example,  mysite.com, www.mysite.com, login.mysite.com, mail.mysite.com, etc...  You would probably want to get a Multi-Domain or Wildcard Certificate to cover all.

https://www.namecheap.com/security/ssl-certificates.aspx

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
larry45Author
Inspiring
July 19, 2018

www.mysite.com, login.mysite.com, mail.mysite.com, etc...

Oh no! Another thing..

Never heard of that before. make note; never end. My big worry is the 2000 search results that come up and not getting 404s

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 19, 2018

larry4545  wrote

My big worry is the 2000 search results that come up and not getting 404s

Stop worrying.  After your certificate is installed and activated, your web pages reside on both http and https.  So there will be no 404 errors from SERPs unless you actually delete files from your server. 

When you redirect all incoming traffic from HTTP to HTTPS with your .htaccess file, it will be ttoally seamless.   As an example, go to my website (alt-web.com) type HTTP:// in the address bar.   It resolves automatically to HTTPS://

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 18, 2018

This link below will get you started with SSL Certs on GoDaddy hosting.  Domain validation is probably all you need.

SSL Certificate | Secure Your Data & Transactions - GoDaddy

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
larry45Author
Inspiring
July 18, 2018

Thanks Nancy none of this help. My site has thousands of inner pages and and sub wordpress sites, blog.. And I just go off the phone with someone in the biz and he says, even after the SSL. many of pages with have 1/2 a palock and elements may need to be fixed, and worse, the hundreds of search hundred of results will get 404s. Total nightmare. Is there any consultant service that can help?

Legend
July 18, 2018

larry4545  wrote

and worse, the hundreds of search hundred of results will get 404s. Total nightmare. Is there any consultant service that can

That should not happen as any search list which still has the old http:// listed will get automatically directed to the new https:// url assuming you use the re-write code in the htaccess file. Google will eventually update itself to include https://........so it should not effect your listing position or popularity

BenPleysier
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 18, 2018

Once the certificate is active, in the .htaccess file put the following

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on

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

or

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://examplesite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Edit: I use Let's Encrypt, but there are many others out there, just Google the subject.

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larry45Author
Inspiring
July 18, 2018

Understand very little there.

larry45Author
Inspiring
July 18, 2018

I've heard Let's Encrypt is very draining and non intuitive and requires a fresh round of nuisance every 3 months.