SSL Secure Certificates Coming to WA - And they are FREE!
Hi Everyone,
Today I'm here to discuss something extremely exciting that is coming to WA. Today marks the day that we will be allowing SSL Secure Certificates to be installed on websites hosted here at WA. This is a big deal, but to make it an ever BIGGER deal and to continue to put the SiteRubix offering into a new league, we're making SSL completely free...Yes FREE
Ok, I'm going to back up a minute here to give a quick explanation about SSL and what it is exactly.
What Exactly is SSL?
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and it's a technology that allows a website to transfer data over an encrypted connection. You'll notice that the WA Members area is over an SSL connection by the "https://" protocol at the beginning of the domain name. This means that any interaction that you have from your browser, to WA is completely secure over a 256-bit connection meaning that it's all but impossible to hack.
...but what exactly does this mean for a website?
A website that is running over SSL can securely accept payments for one, but another big thing is that the search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc, are starting to give some weight to sites that are served over SSL. In other words, your site may benefit from being secure for your visitors.
SSL can cost upwards of $100/year, plus setup fees, and special server requirements that a lot of web hosts charge for. We believe that everyone has a right to have a SECURE website for their website visitors, and this is why we are offering it for FREE to any websites hosted here at WA.
So Carson, Do I Need SSL?
The short answer is no, you do not NEED it - look at websites now that are not SECURE, they are doing extremely well. However, adding SSL can add an extra layer of security, and even a bump in how the search engines favor a website. The goal of SSL is to offer secure websites first and foremost, and this is what Search Engines like to see.
For those who are accepting payment directly, or wanting to setup e-commerce websites that allow for payment processing SSL is a definite requirement. Until now we have not accommodated for this at WA, but that has all changed!
When Can I get SSL?
This post is to tell everyone that Free SSL is coming to WA very soon and will be available for websites on domains other than SiteRubix.com domains.
**The Free SiteRubix.com websites offered at WA are not candidates for SSL because that is a shared domain and not everyone will need secure connections**
More about SSL and the benefits in coming posts once anyone can take part and start serving their websites securely.
--- Edit ---
Thank you to everyone who has submitted sites to take part in the early SSL beta release. At this point we will stop taking submissions but everyone will be able to enjoy adding SSL to websites very soon!
--- End of Edit ---
I would love to hear your comments and feedback below!!
Cheers,
Carson
Recent Comments
270
THANK you very much, Carson, I seemed to have missed this!
I'll definately be looking into it, to keep my resources and options open for the future, as I begin to progress again with a solid plan and so much great help from here!
Have a great work week,
Cheers,
Therese
Great news. But I have a question for you Carson, or anyone who feels they can answer the question. Do you think that visitors may want to leave the site when they see that our sites are now encrypted? I mean, that the site is encrypted and maybe there is something that they cannot do now? I don't know, I'm not real knowledgeable about SSL.
SSL does not affect the operation of the site.
No-one will leave a site because it is safe. But many will leave a site because is not safe.
Since Google intends to not list unsafe sites they won't need to worry about visitors leaving. They won't have any visitors.
Hey Thom,
One day all websites will be SSL, and Google is really pushing people to get sites secured with SSL certificates. All an SSL certificate does is encrypted the data that is transferred from your site to the serve so that it's safe and cannot be viewed by anyone. It means the data is secure from hackers, bots, or scripts etc.
You will see that the WA members area is SSL and has been for many years. Paypal, Google, Facebook... every large site is SSL and personal websites for folks here at WA will soon be able to have SSL security added too.
Carson
Hi Carson,
Thank you for the information,I am fairly new-2 months.I don't know a lot about computers and the internet but I do know about security.This is a great thing you and Kyle are doing for us.
You guys are Always making improvements and adding features that allow us to be more productive.I Pray That The LORD Continues To Shower His Abundant Blessing UpOn You;
Have A Blessed And Safe WeekEnd;
Your Brother In Christ;
Respectfully;
William
Awesome Carson ... another amazing feature added to the package of features and benefits that come with WA membership.
Is there any other training and/or hosting site out there offering this service? If there is I'll bet there is a fee associated with the offer.
I've been saying for a long time that you and Kyle's commitment to continuous improvement is unmatched in the industry.
With online hacking and security breaches in the news every day the general public is naturally a bit more cautious about surfing the internet. Having https:// in our site domain names adds that extra measure of security that you would expect should help increase our site visits (aka. Traffic).
Hey there Carson.
I was hosted at Traffic Planet until recently, and they let me have ssl certificates for free. So I installed on both sites.
Anyways, the ssl certificates "broke" my jaaxy plugin and the siterubix plugin.
So I uninstalled the SSL...
since then I'm back at WA hosting. no SSL.
If I install the SSL, will the plugins both break again?
This is very great news to us Carson. Looking forward for the trainings how to incorporate it on our websites after the beta tests. What's great about it is that it's free! lots of benefit here at WA really, while other domain name companies charge this for a fee! Thanks WA!
- Ces
Hi Carson,
PM Sent.
Interestingly, I received notification of your blog exactly 38 minutes ago. But, strangely, looking at the comments here, some of them were posted over 7 hours ago!
I've been on WA the entire day and checking my email notifications constantly throughout the day, so I'm not sure how this notification was only sent out recently?
I feel like I missed out?
Very nice of you to have it free for members.
I didn't make the first 20 but all good things come if u wait (:
so I can wait.
Thank you Carson and Kyle. I said it before and I'm saying it again: you are five stars all the way in my book.
Cheers
Khalid
Ohh Nice announcement in renewal month...
Now let me see to renew or not renew..
nah I won't renew! and most definitely and absolutely not!
'cos I want to pay $30/month on secure hosting,
$19 -$27/month for a keyword research tool,
$100 + fees for SSL
ohh and I really want to miss out on Jay's Webinars, as well as all the top quality support available from the community here..
J/K (obviously)
Renewal for existing yearly members is becoming a more obvious choice!
See more comments
Thanks to everyone who sent websites so that we could include them in the beta release of FREE SSL certificates here at WA. We're continuing to add SSL to a few more sites, but if you haven't seen SSL on your site, then we may not have been able to include it simply based on the pure volume of volunteers (amazing!!!).
Not to worry!
SSL is coming to everyone very soon :)
Great news!
I'm very much looking forward to this addition.
Thank you for your continued efforts :)
I'm just wondering what the next upgrade will be...CDN?
Again, many thanks, for this info as well!!
That would be a great website upgrade.
Unbelievable Carson. Thanks a lot !
Awesome news to hear! Wow, you guys are always looking out for us...I'd recently wondered about SSL and now it'll be available here soon! Thank you Carson!
Best wishes :) ~Sherry
Thanks, guys I was worried because I heard about a Google update coming soon that could make maintaining good SERP a challenge.
How do I add mine? It's SuccessSystemsInstitute.com
Hi Carson...
The Jaaxy plugin (embedded on site) and the siterubix plugin (also embedded on site) do not work now I've installed SSL on my website.
here are two screenshots of the jaaxy one. The first pic is the visual editor...there is just a funny little icon in the place where the plugin used to be.
The second pic is the visitor's view of site. There is nothing shown where the box for entering keywords should be.
How to get around this anomaly?
Thanks
Jimbo
Can I be included in the beta release of free ssl certificates?
This would be a great addition...I am currently setting up CDN using AWS for all my sites....I am using a neat plugin that loads all my images and some pages on an external storage bucket plus adding CDN for my images and front pages.
This can really speed up loading times for website, and of course that is a factor in Google ranking, not to mention the increase in sales you can potentially experience (because you lose a LOT of site visitors/buyers when the load times are too long)!
SSL is a must as Carson says for e-commerce sites. For some of our stores (the ones shipping our own physical products), we have joined an accreditation service (in Germany where one of the warehouses is based) where we not only have the SSL but also a "trusted site" badge to display on the site...
That badge thing would be good to have on WA sites as well - I hope someone that could make this happen is reading this (hint hint lol)...
Hi Carson, How Can I have it included on my site?
Yes, on your Siterubix just before you login with password, you should have that Site Plus switch on the far right, you can switch from red to green.
As with any change you make that effects the site, make sure you back up your site to your files first.
Let me know if all is well☺☺☺☺
In case your https doesn't have the green padlock, or is only gray, you may want to test for image URL's to change ( in the image editor)
You can test at the Why No Padlock site to find errors, just enter those three words into Google and click on the test site.
All the Best
Therese