Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. It ensures that all communications between the browser and your website is secure. HTTPS is often used to protect highly confidential online transactions like online banking and online shopping order forms. Converting Site from HTTP to HTTPS is quite easy if you follow the guidelines easily. Websites across the world are moving to HTTPS to be secure and protect from unwanted data loss.

To make the site HTTPS, one can follow the 5 steps listed below to make the website HTTPS. This is a complete guide HTTP to HTTPS for ensuring easy understanding of the process.

• Host the Website on a Dedicated IP Address:

SSL certificate require that the website must have an own dedicated IP address. With a dedicated IP, it ensures that traffic going to that IP address is only going to your website and no one else’s.

• Buy a Certificate:

SSL certificates are small data files which bind a key to a specific organization’s details. When people visit your site via HTTPS that password is checked, and if it matches, it automatically verifies that your website is who you say it is – and it encrypts everything flowing to and from it.

• Activate the Certificate:

Activating the SSL is key to the authentication and process of making the website HTTPS. If you’re activating the certificate yourself, the next step is to generate a CSR. It’s easiest to do this within your web hosting control panel – such as WHM or cPanel. Go to the SSL/TLS admin area and choose to “Generate an SSL certificate and Signing Request”.

• Install the Certificate:

If you’re installing up the certificate yourself, this is the easiest step you’ll ever do. You have the certificate in hand, all you need to do is paste it into your web host control panel. If you’re using WHM. CPanel, click the “Install an SSL Certificate” from under the SSL/TLS menu.

• Update your robots.txt File:

Update any hard-coded links or blocking rules you might have in your robots.txt that might still be pointing to HTTP directories or files.

Sitemaps aren’t required for Google to crawl your site, but they can be useful if you are trying to debug indexing issues. As the above information clearly illustrate the importance of the HTTPS, it is much needed.