Installing a free SSL certificate

An SSL certificate encrypts the traffic between a visitor’s browser and your site. Browsers flag sites without SSL as “Not secure” and search engines take HTTPS into account in rankings. Every hosting plan includes a free SSL certificate that renews automatically before it expires.

Before you start

• Your domain’s DNS records must point to your hosting service (see DNS records). Certificate validation relies on it.
• If you have just changed DNS, wait for propagation to finish.

1. Issue the certificate

1. In the customer panel open your hosting service and use One-click panel login on the Manage tab (see The hosting control panel).
2. On your domain’s management page open SSL/TLS Certificates.
3. Choose the free certificate option; tick the www subdomain and, if needed, the mail domain.
4. Confirm. The certificate is installed within seconds.

2. A permanent redirect to HTTPS

So that visitors always land on the secure address, tick Permanent 301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS in the domain’s Hosting Settings. If you can’t find it, you can add this to the .htaccess file in your site’s root directory:

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

3. Fix mixed-content warnings

If the padlock doesn’t appear, the page still loads an image, stylesheet or script over http://. The Console in your browser’s developer tools shows which resource is the problem. On WordPress, change the site addresses under Settings › General to https:// and update old links in your content.

Common problems

• Validation failed: the domain may point to another server; check your DNS records.
• Certificate only works without www: reissue it with the www option ticked.
• Old devices show certificate errors: very old browsers and operating systems may not recognise the new certificate chain.

If the problem continues, open a ticket with your domain and the error message you see.