HTTPS

HTTPS is the protected version of a web address. The letters sit at the front of the link, and browsers show a small padlock beside it. It means the messages between a visitor's browser and your website are scrambled the whole way, so nobody sitting on the same wi-fi can read a password, a card number or an order as it goes past.

The padlock rests on a small file called an SSL certificate, which lives on the server holding your site. It does two things. It shows a visitor really reached your address and not a copy someone built to catch logins, and it hands over the key used to scramble the conversation. Most certificates now cost nothing and are issued in about two minutes.

Here is where people are misled. The padlock says nothing at all about the business behind the site. It does not mean the shop is real, that the goods will arrive, or that anyone will answer the phone. A fraud site gets the same padlock in the same two minutes, free, and almost all of them do. It promises a private line, not an honest person at the other end of it. Judge a shop by its address, its phone number and its returns policy instead.

Without a certificate, browsers print the words Not secure next to your address and search engines push the page down. The bigger trouble is renewal. Certificates expire, usually after ninety days or a year, and they renew by themselves until the day they quietly stop, because the server moved, the domain changed hands, or someone switched off the job that does it. Then every visitor meets a full red warning page saying your site is dangerous. Sales stop that morning, not gradually. Linkysoft watches the expiry date on every site it looks after, because this failure arrives with no warning email.

Ask whoever hosts your site two things. Who renews the certificate, and who is told when it fails. On Hostrena hosting the renewal runs on its own and the alert goes out before a visitor sees anything. When Linkysoft finishes a website build, HTTPS is on for every page and old http addresses point at the new ones, so an old link in an email still lands correctly.