In case you have missed it, and I can’t imagine how you could have, there’s been a lot of talk about Web site security. A year or two ago, Uncle Google started giving priority to sites that were “secure”. If you are a WordPress user on Blue Host, you may have been trying to sort out some information about SSL.
What is this all about? How does it affect you? What can you do about it?
When we say “SSL” we are talking about something called “Secure Socket Layer”. Frankly, this is technical jibber-jab for a particular type of security setup. The problem is that bad guy Web sites try to fake out visitors and visitors’ browsers. There are also techniques to stealing information that is transferred from a visitor’s computer to a server. As you might expect, credit card information and ID details are especially yummy subjects for stealing.
An SSL certificate is a method of confirming that your Web site’s server is who it claims to be. It also indicates that the data between the visitor’s computer and your site’s server is encoded. Even if you don’t collect credit card or personal information, this is a big deal.
The SSL certificate is a “thing” that is placed on your Web site’s server. It is purchased from a vendor that specializes in that sort of stuff. When somebody visits your site, his or her browser asks, “Who are you?”
Your Web server replies with, “I am such and such and here is my certificate to prove it.”
When the visitor’s computer gets that certificate information the browser checks to see if it is real, fake, current, or old. If the certificate is good and the site server is trustworthy, the visiting computer and your site’s server make a secure connection to each other.
After that point, the data transferred back and forth, even simple images such as photos, are encrypted and “safe”. The search engines love this, as do the browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. The diagram below illustrates what is going on.
WordPress on Blue Host Users
Those of you who are WordPress users on Blue Host hosting accounts should have heard about some new features. Because SSL certificates are such as big deal, Blue Host now has a basic certificate that and be applied to your server. It is free. All you have to do is activate it.
To activate the SSL, log into your Blue Host account cPanel. On the navigation bar at the top look for the WordPress Tools link. When you click that link you will go to a new page with several options listed on the left. Click the Security link and check the details.
For more information about free SSL on Blue Host, check out https://my.bluehost.com/cgi/help/free-ssl.
NOTE: If you are using the CDN (content distributed network) on Blue Host, you cannot use the free SSL. The two features are not compatible.