Moving your website to HTTPS is an important step that you should take to ensure its security. In today’s world, we share sensitive information such as credit card and bank information, usernames, and passwords dozens of times each day.
When it comes to shopping on the web, there are a lot of conveniences that we can take advantage of. Buying groceries, paying bills, running errands, and talking to others face-to-face are no longer necessary.
There are some downsides as well. The responsibility of keeping your website secure is yours as an owner of a website. You should use HTTPS and SSL encryption on your WordPress website. We will discuss that in this guide, so let’s get started.
HTTPS in WordPress
These days, the URLs of the most extensive and popular websites (and increasingly even the smaller ones) begin with HTTPS:// instead of the familiar https:// they used to start with. While on this website, you will be able to see the same thing if you look into your browser bar.
The padlock symbol is one of the ways that modern browsers display a sign that indicates you are on a secure website. In addition, they include the company’s name in the advertisement. It’s a good indication that the site cares about the privacy of its visitors.
HTTPS refers to Hypertext Transport Protocol Secure. The HTTP protocol (which does not include the Secure component) is usually used for facilitating web traffic.
What’s the difference?
To establish a secure connection between the browser and the server, the secure version of the browser uses an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate. As a result, all information exchanged gets encrypted before it is sent.
When encryption is applied to files, plain text information (such as usernames and passwords) will be replaced with random numbers, letters, or combinations. If someone intercepts them, they will not be able to read them, so if they are blocked, they will be hard to understand.
Importance of HTTPS in WordPress
Every website owner should take precautions to ensure that their site and traffic are secure. When it comes to sensitive data, consumers want to be able to trust you with their information. Therefore, it is essential to have HTTPS and SSL to protect your data when data theft has increased and is a huge asset.
The move to HTTPS signals trustworthiness to consumers increases speed and improves the ranking of your website on search engines when you move your website to HTTPS. In addition, the cost of using a service such as Let’s Encrypt has become less relevant with the introduction of a free service like it.
We have discussed how you can obtain a free SSL certificate and add it to your WordPress website to secure it. In addition to describing the necessary steps for moving your entire site over to HTTP’s secure cousin, we also discussed other considerations to keep in mind.
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