I recently upgraded my site to SSL and I was wondering if I should force my traffic to HTTPS rather than leave access to HTTP?
If so how should I go about doing this on WordPress?
It is a good idea, but be warned, you may encounter many "mixed content" warnings where some content is loaded over http. This will happen with hard coded links to things like google fonts and images. If this happens, your page will be regarded as insecure.
Having said that, if you want to force to https add the following to your .htaccess file
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
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Thanks. Do i need to do anything on google webmaster tools like remove the http website properties? Or advise google to go to https? – Olly Jan 18 '17 at 21:43
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1You shouldn't get mixed content warnings if the site has been successfully "upgraded to SSL" - but obviously you need to test that HTTPS is working correctly before forcing this. The above redirect will need to go before any existing WordPress directives. (Surprising the number of users that put redirects at the end of their
.htaccessfile and still expect them to work!) The above redirect should ultimately be changed to a 301 (premanent) redirect after you've made sure it is working OK (ie. changeRtoR=301). – MrWhite Jan 19 '17 at 10:53 -
On Google Search Console (formerly GWT) you need to verify the HTTPS property. You should still keep the HTTP property (don't delete it!) for reporting purposes. – MrWhite Jan 19 '17 at 10:55
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1You should claim all versions of your site in Search Console. Both www and non-www for both http and https versions. Google will also begin indexing your https site even if you don't force the traffic with a redirect since it will prefer the secure version – brandozz Jan 19 '17 at 15:53
