How to Enable and Enforce Your Free SSL

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
• What Do Enable and Enforce Actually Mean?
• How to Enable and Enforce Your Free SSL
• Tips and Tricks: WebsiteBuilder
• Tips and Tricks: WordPress
• Troubleshooting WordPress
• WordPress Resources
• 301 Redirects
• FAQs

Getting Started

In order to enable your free SSL, the following must be true:

• You have a live website on your domain that is visible on the internet.
• Your nameservers and A record must point to the IP address associated with your AccountSupport account.

What does Enable and Enforce actually mean?

• Enable: the act of turning on free SSL support for a specific domain.
• Enforce: the act of forcing all website traffic to https via a 301 redirect

How to enable and enforce your free SSL

1) Log in to your Control Panel
2) Go to Domain Central
3) Click on the domain that you want to Enable with the free SSL



4) Click on the Security link.



5) At the bottom of the panel, you can view the status of your free SSL.

6) Enable or Disable your certificate as desired.



7) It can take up to an hour for your free SSL certificate to fulfill.
8) If your nameservers are incorrectly pointed, you will see an error message, as noted above.



9) Create a 301 Redirect to Enforce your SSL certificate.
10) Test to make sure your SSL certificate is working by typing in your domain name and navigating to your website. You should see HTTPS:// appear before your domain name and any subsequent pages on your site.

Tips and Tricks

AccountSupport's WebsiteBuilder

After enabling your free SSL, you will need to re-publish your AccountSupport WebsiteBuilder site in order for the changes to take place.

WordPress

Enabling your WordPress site to display securely may require a few steps.

1) Back up your database and site content.
2) Make sure that your Let’s Encrypt SSL is enabled, as shown above.
3) Log in to your WordPress Dashboard and go to Settings and General.

4)  Revise the WordPress Address (URL) and the Site Address (URL) to https

5) Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
6) The database entries must now be revised to reflect the secure address (https)

Change Database Entries: WordPress sites

There are many plugins available from WordPress.org for this task. Visit the following page at WordPress.org for complete information.
https://wordpress.org/support/article/https-for-wordpress/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/

Troubleshooting WordPress Issues

You may encounter several issues when enabling an SSL on a WordPress site. This section focuses on the most common issue - the Mixed Content Warning - it doesn't and can't address all potential issues.

This can occur when your site contains other resources that are not hosted on your site with https. A few examples of mixed content may be:

• Images
• Videos
• Stylesheets
• Scripts

For instance, if you are linking to Facebook images or YouTube videos, you might encounter this issue. The best practice for images would be to upload them into your WordPress media library; they would then display as secure on your site.

WordPress Resources

The best source for troubleshooting WordPress issues is the WordPress.Org site that is listed below. In addition, a few of the plugins that can help you troubleshoot the mixed content issue are listed.

https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page
https://wordpress.org/plugins/ssl-insecure-content-fixer/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/remove-http/

301 Redirects

1. Log in to your Account Support Control Panel.
2. Go to .htaccess Editor.
3. Go to Direct Editor.
4. Click Change to select which directory you want to place the 301 redirect in.
5. Add one of the following code snippets into your .htaccess file (based on what you want to do):

   Old to new domain

   RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^OLDDOMAIN.com [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.OLDDOMAIN.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://NEWDOMAIN.net/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

   Update "OLDDOMAIN" to the old domain you want to redirect to and update the "NEWDOMAIN" to the new domain it is redirecting to.

    

   Https Redirect

   RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^DOMAIN.com [NC] RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.DOMAIN.com/$1 [R=301,L]

   Update the "DOMAIN" to the domain that requires the redirect from HTTP to HTTPS

6. Click Save.

FAQs

Q. Will free SSL be an account-wide setting (applied to all domains) or just single domains?
A. You have the option to enable the free SSL on a per-domain basis. A free SSL cannot be enabled on domains with a paid SSL certificate. When enabling free SSL for a domain, that domain and all subdomains will receive a certificate.

Q. What will be required to enable my free SSL?
A. You must have a live website on your domain that is visible on the internet. The nameservers and A Record must point to the IP address associated with your AccountSupport account.

Q. What if I already have a paid SSL certificate on my domain?
A. If you have a paid certificate on your domain, you will not be able to enable the free SSL. If the paid certificate expires or is cancelled, you will be able to apply for the free SSL certificate.

Q. If I cancel my paid SSL certificate, can I enable the free SSL?
A. Yes, your domain will show up in the list in Domain Central, and you can enable the free SSL there.

Q. Why should I keep my paid SSL if you are giving me a free one?
A. A paid certificate offers you another level of protection and comes with a warranty. It allows you to display a security seal on your site and is a great addition to an eCommerce website.
 

Comparison: Paid versus Free SSL
Feature	Let's Encrypt SSL	Paid SSL
Primary Domain Encryption
Subdomain Encryption
Lock Icon in URL Bar
Warranty
Comodo CA TrustLogo
PCI Compliant

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