When I first heard
of Google rating whether a site was secure or not, I did not pay all that
much attention, but then I started hearing more and more about it might not being a bad thing for [SiteHoundSniffs], I
decided to get’r’done.
If you do not know
what I am talking about, the http: at the beginning of a site address is
changed to https: while a padlock shows up to the left. This involves having at least a shared SSL
certificate and removing any “stuff” on the site. [SSL] stands for Secure
Sockets Layer, which is the standard
security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and
a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and
browsers remain private and integral.
To accomplish it for
SiteHoundSniffs, I had to upgrade my hosting plan to a business level in order
to have a shared SSL certificate. A
private SSL certificate is available, but it costs more than we can afford at
this time. I upgraded several weeks ago,
but there was still not a padlock showing up while my upgrade seemed to be on
hold (according to my HostGator dashboard).
I was finally able to get in touch with someone to help me (the trouble
was probably my fault) and they said I had the certificate and suggested going
to [Why No Padlock?] to determine
what may be the problem. If you look up
at the address bar here, you won’t see a padlock, nor an https:. Blogger/Blogspot sites share a SSL
certificate, but there is some “stuff” on here keeping the padlock away. One of the things is the Feedjit widget on
the sidebar, which would be easy to remove.
I have no idea what the other thing is.
Hence, “stuff.”
Yeah, there was
some “stuff” on SiteHoundSniffs, and after doing some research, I came upon a
WordPress plugin that got rid of most of it after three passes of increasing
the setting. Ah, but Really Simple SSL
was indeed simple and finished the job in one pass. Needless to say (I hope) you can now see a
padlock and https: on the SiteHoundSniffs.com address bar.
I do not know if something
broke in the code while removing the “stuff,” but when I went to start adding a
new round of listings to SiteHoundSniffs, I could not access the All category
on the backend. The others I checked
seemed to be fine, but I still had a major problem on my hands.
After failing to
find a realistic (for me) way to easily fix the problem, the only recourse
seems to be deleting the page for the All category and building another. Since Grayson has been somewhat less than
fully satisfied with the way the site looks, it will be undergoing some major
remodeling for the next week or so. He
promises that it will not take all that long, and I have rued the days I have
called his bluff in the past. Sigh.
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