So my first question will be “why would I want to redirect my sites traffic to Https from http?”

Short answer: This is for a very simple reason– security.

Other reasons include improved user experience and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which basically ensure your site ranks high on search engines, ie does your site show up as one of the first sites on Google?

Focussing on security, we know the web is full of dangers. A redirect  (more specifically, an http redirect) ensures your visitors can always access your site more safely.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) refers to the rules that guide the movement of files across the web. These files usually are images, video, text, and so on.

There are various ways to perform these redirects. Your choice would depend on what CMS (content management system) your site is based on. In English, this means what tool you used in creating and managing the content on you your website.  In effect, redirecting from a WordPress site would be different from a Joomla site.

 Http to https Redirection

In WP, there are many ways of effecting a redirect. Exploiting an SSL plugin from WordPress would be one. Search for SSL plugin on your WP dashboard under “Add New” plugins.  Install the plugin, and activate it. A button for that will be visible.

Next go to WordPress main “settings” menu. Click on “HTTPS Redirection”.

Two choices will be available. Choose one or both of them

• Enable automatic redirection to HTTPS
• Force resources to use HTTPS URL

Voila, whenever a request is made for your url, the http version will be visited. With these tools, all your http URLs will be replace with https. With this  https. To be able to use this tool, you should have an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate installed. Your site host can help do the installation.

Joomla http to https Redirecting

This is only a few short steps:

1. Login into your admin panel.
2. Click on your configuration button
3. Go to the general section and locate your server panel. There you’ll change “Force SSL” to “All Site”. You are good to go once you save it.

Linux and cPanel Http to Https Redirecting

Add the code below to your .htaccess file and the redirects will be automatic

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%

{HTTP_HOST}%

{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

Windows and Plesk Http to Https Redirection

If you site is windows based the code below will effect the redirects automatically for you.  In your web configuration file add the following code:

xml version=”1.0” encoding=”UTF-8”?>

Depending on your CMS you can do your http to https redirects with these instructions.

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