SSL certificate

[gail]

I got an SSL cert from Host-it and it has been installed.

However Google is still showing my site as www. and therefore unsecured.

The link I got from Host-it takes me to the https version which naturally is secure.

How do I get Google to show my secure version in their search results?

The choice of preferred domain in the hosting settings is only www. scottishgifs4u.co.uk or scottishgifts4u.co.uk and doesn't give me the choice of https or is this the wrong area i'm looking in?

[MDN]

Hi, You need to force the ssl via your .htaccess file, so in that add:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$
        RewriteRule ^robots\.txt$ robots_ssl.txt [L]
</IfModule>

The above forces the site to the ssl version and also gives instruction for two robots files so that the correct ssl version is indexed and not the non ssl. You may need to find a different version of the above depending on your hosting, so check your current .htaccess file first, I host with Teclan, not sure how yours would be set up.

Then I presume you have a robots.txt file, so in that simply have:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

That stops indexing of the non ssl version, then add a second file named robots_ssl.txt to have your normal instructions, a basic one would be:

User-agent: *
Allow: /
Sitemap: (https://your url to sitemap)

Remember to add the secure site to your webmaster tools account and upload the sitemaps to that, not the non ssl..

[gail]

Thanks Lee.

That certainly looks at the limit of my capabilities , which is why I paid extra for it to be installed.


My thoughts are as all those modifications are made in the hosting panel then that should have been done by the hosting company that I paid to install it. There was no point paying for it to be installed if I have to add coding to the htaccess files and more by myself.

I assumed that I would upload the site and it would show as a secure site.

Would you agree?

[MDN]

Unfortunately not how it works, your host installs the SSL on the server for your use, you then have to configure how and where you use that certificate with your website.

[Mike Hughes]

Have you entered the SSL settings in Sellerdeck and changed any hardcoded links to use https: ?

That's always a good idea too.

Mike

[guccij]

I got an SSL cert from Host-it and it has been installed.

However Google is still showing my site as www. and therefore unsecured.

You should probably change your signature on this forum to reflect the https as well.

[gail]

I'm getting there

It's proving not quite as daunting as I thought with a bit of help on the redirects.

One problem that came up was on refreshing the site after ticking the SSL box I got the following error message :- An invalid oplock acknowledgement was received by the system.

I raised a ticket with Sellerdeck and they suggested I check my FTP password. I reentered it and that cured the problem.

I believe this has raised it's head before and this may be a good starting point for anyone.

Thanks for everyone's contributions.