There, now the site has an SSL, dang it

I read last night in a WordPress news bulletin that Google and, now, WordPress itself will soon be forcing websites to get those fancy SSL certificates (going from http to https).  Basically through shaming (Google flagging your site on Chrome if it’s not https), lowering your SEO ranking, and certain changes in the development of WordPress.

So, okay, I went over to Siteground to see if I could get one of these certs.  Turns out you can get one for free now, through a third party which wants the whole Web to be secure, even little sites like mine that have no direct sales, and Siteground makes it available through cPanel.

But forcing everyone’s browser to automatically use the cert?  Not so easy.

Turns out some WordPress sites have issues with being forced to go to https.  You can use it easily, but if someone types an old link into their browser, they go to http.

Hours upon hours of a days-long migraine getting worse, trying to fix it, none of the .htaccess codes are working, the cPanel fix is not working, and–

Hey, a plugin takes care of that.  Load it up, plug it in, and–

My site is secure now.  Yay.

So much trouble for a little “s.”