In 2014 Google started the initiative to secure the internet by encrypting all the traffic. In 2017, your website must use the secure protocol, https or lose its good Google ranking.
At WordCamp Vienna 2017, Martin Mucha will show us in his presentation, how you can install/activate https in your hosting environment. You probably don’t even need to buy an SSL-certificate – if Your hoster supports free solutions like LetsEncrypt.
After installation of an SSL-certificate, you will want to change your website to https://MyWebsite.com. Changing your wp-config.php will not be enough.
Because changing the URL of your website leads to some WordPress-related problems: for example the paths for pictures in your MySQL (Maria DB) database. You will learn how to change that with easy SQL-statements (are there any easy SQL statements), or with Plug-Ins or a nice migration tool, that can also be used for backups – and also for a WordPress development and testing environment on your computer (Windows, Mac, Linux).
After your Website is secured, You could also use the quicker HTTP/2 protocoll on your server – if your hosting partner supports that.
I will publish my slides, the “easy” SQL-statements, and I hope that you will also find my presentation in May 2017 at https://wordpress.tv/
Why changing to https?
Beneath the technical and administration questions we will discuss, why to do that – advantages it will give, when you secure your URL – and what disadvantages if you don’t change now!
CU at #wcvie!
Speaker: Martin Mucha
