My sites don’t have HTTPS. So what?

Do I really need HTTPS?

I recently moved hosting companies – from SiteGround (which was hiking prices too fast for my pocket.  You can read about the complaints by doing a Google search on them) to HostGator (which had very favourable reviews and so far, they are proving good.  Their online live chat support was also excellent).

However after all that headache and worry over migrating my sites, I reluctantly turned to consider if I needed to have SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or in basic terms, to have the https prefix on my urls?

For now, the short answer is – No.  I am not installing them on any of my sites.  Most especially as all of them are blog sites and none ask for nor take credit cards details or any other kind of details really.

Yes some may not agree with this but this matter viz. whether you need the SSL cert or not, is itself not universally agreed upon.  Some advise yes. Some no. Some maybe.

And don’t forget  – it costs money (sometimes not insubstantial).  Annually.  And having it installed could:

• “break” a number of plugins (I use WordPress for my sites)
• could also result in broken internal and/or external links (301 Errors which indicates the requested URL has permanently moved)
• and last but not least: Boy!  it ain’t no easy matter to understand what it is nor how to install it.

Anyway after a bit of research, this article “Does Your Website Really Need SSL?” (by NutsAndBoltsMedia.com) has convinced me for now that I can do without the SSL expense and headache.  Sorry Google!

Addendum

I stayed up in bed thinking about this.  I almost reconsidered my decision and thought maybe I will make the effort and try to get the SSL certs for my websites.  However after a bit more research and reading some of the results of a Google search: problems after installing ssl on WordPress, I have again decided that certainly for now, for me, the many possible pains of converting over to https far outweighs any potential benefits it offers.  (Note that this is only applicable to me and my circumstances.  Especially if you have e-commerce sites, you might definitely think hard about getting your SSL certs and being able to offer/show the safer https protocol.)

SSL HTTPS PROBLEMS?

However if you are WordPress user and have converted over to https and are facing a host of problems, here are some reputable articles that might be able to help you:

• wpbeginner.com: How to Fix Common SSL Issues in WordPress (Beginner’s Guide)
• wpbuffs.com: Fixing WordPress HTTPS Mixed Cotent Warnings (7-Step Process)

YOU WANT SSL HTTPS ON WORDPRESS?

And if you are still thinking of getting https for your WordPress site, then this article might help:

• WebsiteSetup.org: How to Move HTTP to HTTPS on WordPress (Very Useful!!!)
• wpbeginner.com: How to Properly Move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS (Beginners Guide) .
• wordpress.org/support : HTTPS for WordPress

Good Luck!

p/s if you feel like it, please leave a comment to let me know how you went.