Once you have purchased or activated your security certificate and it has been installed, you need to start using it. If your site keeps working over plain HTTP, the certificate will provide little practical value.
To use the certificate, your software and website must send visitors to the https:// version of the site instead of the http:// version.
They look almost the same, but that final s changes everything.
How do you tell your website to use HTTPS?
That depends on how the website was built. In many cases, if you use a system such as WordPress, the settings let you change the site address to HTTPS directly.
If you are unsure about your specific website, contact our technical team and we will review it with you.
Using .htaccess
The .htaccess file can perform automatic redirects based on different conditions. One common solution is to force the server to redirect visitors from HTTP to HTTPS.
Add code like this to your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Make sure you replace example.com with your real domain name.