I always had a question regarding the ranking as well as the security of the website which is still using HTTP on their website or blogs or any portal. Well, this is not a matter of shame for anyone because it has almost nothing to do with any security purpose but indeed a matter of fact, HTTPS is now a very essential thing to rank higher in the search results of Google as per some recent blogs from official Google Buzz. Since then I was busy searching some best alternative to paid HTTPS for any domain but here's a good news for you all wanted to enjoy free SSL certificate for their blogs or website. Before beginning, I would like to give you all a highlight of What is a HTTPS or SSL Certificate?
HTTPS (also called HTTP over Transport Layer Security (TLS), HTTP over SSL, and HTTP Secure) is a communications protocol for secure communication over a computer network which is widely used on the Internet. HTTPS consists of communication over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) within a connection encrypted by Transport Layer Security, or its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer. The main motivation for HTTPS is authentication of the visited website and protection of the privacy and integrity of the exchanged data.
Increases RankingAccording to Google, any blog with HTTPS will be preferred first in the case of ranking among non-HTTPS blog. So it is now an important factor if you want full SEO on your blog. On the first page, Google claims to rank 30% of websites with https enabled.
Adds protection and securityHTTPS surely helps users protect their personal identity and internet user detail on your blog.
It gives more premium and a professional lookHaving that green padlock on your blog link definitely makes your blog look professional. Many pro internet surfers whenever visit any website then they watch the address bar of the browser and look for that green padlock which is a confirmation whether the website is HTTPS protected or not. Pro-internet users love websites with HTTPS over non-HTTPS websites.
Increase page speed loadingAfter adding HTTPS to my blog, I noticed that it is loading faster than ever. However, this also increases SEO of the blog as speed is also a factor many times.
Problems/ Disadvantages you may face while moving to HTTPS
Meanwhile, where there are many advantages of using HTTPS there are also some negative aspects of using HTTPS.
- While migrating to HTTPS, there is a drop in traffic until Google crawls and index all your HTTPS-enabled URLS.
- After enabling HTTPS on your blog, going back to HTTP might cause your site to get totally deindexed by search engines.
Steps To Migrate Blogger Custom Domain From HTTP to Free Secure HTTPS
One of the most important tools we will use in this process is CloudFlare CDN. What is CloudFlare?
CloudFlare CDN is a service for Content Delivery Network, which is a system of servers that help deliver web pages and contents (images, HTML, CSS etc) to a user based on geographical locations of each user. They are fast and works brilliantly for everyone without any lag in connection.
Here we will be using CloudFlare CDN's tools which offer HTTPS certificate to its users for free which is valid for lifetime.
Here are some specific features of CloudFlare CDN:- Protects your site from threats
- Improves your blog's performance and speed
- Free HTTPS for your blog
- Works great with other CDNs
- Obfuscate your email from spammers.
- Adds an extra layer of caching to your blog
Hope now you have learned much about CloudFlare CDN and now it's the time to work upon and add HTTPS to our blog.
Firstly, Create an account at CloudFlare
Visit
www.cloudflare.com >> locate "Get Started Today"
>> Add your Email and choose a password
>> Hit Sign Up.
>>On the next page, Tick " I agree to ..."
>> Click Create Account.
Next, is Adding your blog to CloudFlare
You are now the way to add HTTPS on your blog. On this next page, locate "Add a website", in the box below it, input your blog custom domain URL. (e.g www.technogeeknetwork.com). >> Begin Scan.
Hereafter clicking on Begin Scan you need to wait for some couple of minutes so that it initializes your blog's DNS settings. After completion of this process, you need to click on "Continue".
Verify DNS Scan records.
After the scan, CloudFlare will provide the list of all your DNS records just as shown in the below photo. Do verify to see if all your records are complete and only yours.
then Click "Continue"
Next, Select a plan
This is the step where you are suggested to buy a plan or you can also go with the free version also.
Simply click on "Free Website" checkbox and then Click on "Continue"
[P.S. I am also using Free Website version itself]
Next, This step marks the changing of Nameservers
In this step, you need to change the nameservers of your domain by visiting your domain registrar like Godaddy, Bigrock, Namecheap, Bluehost etc.
Here I'll help you on how you can change nameservers - Open a new tab and Login to your registrar dashboard >> go to client area >> Domains >> besides your domain name, Click the drop-down icon (next to spanner icon) >> locate manage nameservers >> Nameservers >> you would see your default name servers (even CloudFlare showed you) >> switch to custom nameservers >> replace the name servers accordingly >> Change Nameservers.
This is almost same for every domain registrar. However,
any changes made to nameservers are reflected under 24 hours.
Changing nameservers will give access to your domain to CloudFlare. But still, we are not done. After reflection of the change of nameservers in your CloudFlare account then follow next steps.
Finally, it's the time to enable HTTPS on your blog
If your changes of nameservers started propagating in CloudFlare then you need to follow some settings changes.
In the "
Crypto" tab, locate SSL and at the right, you should see "
Full" >> Click it and select "
Flexible".
Congratulations! You have successfully added and enabled SSL certificate (HTTPS) to your blog.
Post Redirection settings after enabling HTTPS using Page Rules
Here we will set up a permanent 301 redirection which will redirect all blog pages from HTTP to the HTTPS version of your blog using page rules option in CloudFlare dashboard.
Go to "Page Rules" on the top tab >> "Create Page Rule".
In all rules, replace "technogeeknetwork.com" with your blog URL.#
Rule 1
if the URL matches: http://*technogeeknetwork.com/*
Locate and Click Settings, Set it to "Always Use HTTPS".
Rule 2
if the URL matches: http://technogeeknetwork.com/*
then the settings are Forwarding URL >> 301 - Permanent Redirect.
Bottom URL: https://www.technogeeknetwork.com/$1
Rule 3
if the URL matches: https://technogeeknetwork.com/*
then the settings are Forwarding URL >> 301 - Permanent Redirect.
Bottom URL: https://www.technogeeknetwork.com/$1
This completes redirection process. All these page rules will help redirect both the www and the non-www version of your HTTPS-enabled blog.
The last step in this tutorial is changing security options
Go to "Firewall" >> "Security Level" >> Change it from Medium to "Low".
Now you have reached the end of this tutorial as well as you have successfully applied HTTPS on your blog.
In few cases, you need to give it a few hours to see the changes. At least wait for 24 hours [recommended for everyone].