But I have had several issues in these months. Web Hosting Price Comparisons and WordPress Tutorials! In the case of any question/query feel free to ask me in the comment section below. But I have not used any advanced feature yet. They seem much better than Bluehost. In some scenario, Bluehost will validate your identity for domain & they will use who.is information of your domain for sending the validation email. Thank you so much, Kerry when youre just a dabbler like me, any non-standard thing like this is horribly intimidating. I hope this article helped you fix the Bluehost free SSL certificate unavailable or unknown error. This made it impossible to reach the HTTPS version of my website. Four! To fix the error, watch the step by step video below. They should really not let these two features be enabled together. Login to your WordPress blog or website. Your step-by-step instructions were very easy to follow and I was able to fix my issue. It seems really good. Always more rapide response that way. Thanks very much Kerry! Before this latest update, customers would often see a message like this: Bluehost free SSL certificate unavailable. Or, if you prefer to follow written instructions with screenshots, keep reading. I also create tutorials on Linux server administration, and have a ton of experience with web hosting products. My solution was to not have them on at the same time. In fact, you are the first to report on such a negative experience with them. Of course they say its great, because they make money from it. This certificate will certify that the website is yours and not a fraud or attacker. As Google already mentioned that they will give little ranking to HTTPS enabled sites. Lets go to Thursday now. RewriteEngine On Sites like banks and Paypal use the highest form of SSL and are thus 100% verified. You explained by snapshot and full details so i like it. The Unknown message never goes away inside your Bluehost account, even after the issue is fixed using the steps in this post. One of the most requested tutorials on BHUsers Unofficial Bluehost users community is: Well, personally I have been waiting to write this tutorial so that all of our community users using Bluehost hosting can enjoy the free SSL for their websites. To install, take the following steps: The fact that Bluehost is making it so easy to install LetsEncrypt SSL certificates is a big deal.
Unhappy Soon to Be Former Bluehost Customer. Must do: Install Really simple SSL WordPress plugin: Now install this plugin call Really simple SSL. Your way of presentation of this blog is very good. Filed Under: Bluehost Tutorials Tagged With: HTTPS, SSL, Tutorial, WordPress. Even Google will prefer HTTPS over HTTP. Optional case 1: When Bluehost is unable to update site URL & WordPress Home URL.
So easy to follow and saved me a lot of headache. Actually I only had to complete step 1. If you have any more problems, you should simply switch. So as Googles deadline for showing warnings on all non-SSL sites draws closer, expect more and more hosting providers to give up this juicy revenue stream in favor of free SSL certificates. On this blog, I share all the tips, reviews, and tutorials related to Bluehost hosting. http://www.webpagetest.org/ I got an X for Effective use of CDN. And these last issues with the website being down for more than a day. When I'm not blogging and helping clients with WordPress, you'll find me on the beach with a good book. However, Bluehost has done installing SSL certificate for you. In this post, you will find the story behind this! Switch to self-hosted WordPress.org from Blogger, Wix, Tumblr, SquareSpace, and more. Richard. Ive been managing several websites on them. The only reason why so many people recommend them, is the affiliate program that pays a lot. Has anyone been able to get Bluehost to work with CloudFlare with SSL to work (without purchasing Platinum support)? Your email address will not be published. Thank you for sharing.
Updates can break your blog. It doesnt matter what application is running inside that domain. At Siteground, Im paying 47 EUR per year, but its shared hosting. Theyre probably banking on the fact that most small business owners dont know enough about free SSL options and will take whatever products are pushed onto them. Since this is the version that is linked everywhere, the website could be considered down. Go toMy Sites >> Manage Site. So a plugin is the simplest solution for everyone. AutoSSL trivializes this process by doing all the heavy lifting for you. Theres a trick to making it show. I followed these instructions after Bluehost tech support claimed my issue was fixed, I waited the appropriate propagation time, and it wasnt fixed. THANK YOU! And it was fixed early. But most people that recommend it, arent even using it themselves. I didnt consider DigitalOcean so far. I had many issues with Bluehost and it took them an unreasonable amount of time to fix the issue. Your email address will not be published. Youre very welcome Amber. Need to make a decision fast? I even have personal websites hosted on my own servers at home.
And to clarify, WordPress redirects work fine for most sites, but a .htaccess redirect is good for site speed. Let me know if it helped you in the comments box below. RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off The remaining is for other projects. This is the email that I got: You just need to follow the instruction by clicking the link & pasting the code. Edit the profile URL in Google Analytics from HTTP to HTTPS, Over time on all your social media profile start updating site link from HTTP to HTTPS. I am using BlueHost for a couple of months and also had good experience with. Which are not compatible together. Awesome video it worked like a charm. When I login to my cPanel account, I could not view the WordPress tools, how to access that tab? See instructions ofhow to fix it here. I am with Siteground now. Is there another CDN that people recommend? Using this plugin, you can search for all the links on your blog with http://domain.com to https://domain.com. They repeat this process each time your certificate was about to expire. Wow thank you so much, this was exactly what I needed and your video was super easy to follow. I hope that you continue to publish great content and that you do well Cheers. Before Bluehost AutoSSL integration, you had to manually generate the Lets Encrypt certificate by logging into your account via SSH and installing it manually. It turns out many people have issues with bluehost. There is an incompatibility between two services Bluehost are offering: their SSL certificates and the SiteLock CDN. Are your blog and forum hosted with them? SSL still displays as unknown in Bluehost, but my site shows as secure in Chrome, works with https, etc. But now Bluehost does this on its own. So so helpful. However, before you start celebrating, there are few things that you should do: Moving your WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS is worthdoing as it adds the level of confidence among readers & also one of the search engine ranking factor. My tutorials, software reviews, and services will save you time, money, and a ton of technical headaches. Your email address will not be published. Here is the email that I received for validating domain ownership: SSL Certificate will not install automatically for: Click on the link & you need to select your email wherevalidation e-mail for your SSL certificate will be sent.
Yes, this can be nice indeed :) Another blog of mine is statically hosted as well. You saved me! AutoSSL is the cPanel/WHM functionality that automatically installs and renews free Lets Encrypt certificates every other month. You may want to contact Bluehost to see if there is a way to enable both at the same. What you can do in this case is, click on settings tab & update the URL manually. If you do not know about it, the only thing you need to secure your website is an SSL certificate. Thats good to know that they are providing such a good service :) Thank you Kerry!! Login to Cloudflare dashboard & under Crypto enable full SSL as shown in screenshot below. The encryption provided by free SSL solutions like Lets Encrypt is every bit as strong as those provided by high-end EV certificates. When you changed the url to https or when you activated the Really Simple SSL plugin ? Perhaps because I am an established account and do most of my own tech support.
I will cover about WordPress tools in detail but for now, lets stick to our main topic. Your email address will not be published. Once youve backed up, then activate SSL! Sorry to hear youre not a big fan of Bluehost. The power of static site generators :) Love it! Amazingly helpful video. Thats the best Ive used in Switzerland. Many of you might not be aware of the fact that using SSL (HTTPS) is a positive search engine ranking factor. There is no point in giving any more money to companies like as bad as bluehost. Raja Free SSL is not available for Bluehost.in customers. I Had not come across a more thorough explanation for fixing my problem before I found your directions. Thanks again Kerry, you kept me from becoming very frustrated! I have migrated my website from Bluehost to SiteGround, going to to the same with all my clients, My experience is, problems will persist probably until I buy all the security features because prior to all the mishaps, I received many of such emails telling me how vulnerable my website is. And you do not need to be a web programmer to get an SSL certificate. Most of my issues with them were also coming from SSL problems. I was using the free SSL certificate from Bluehost. Once done, now open your blog admin area again but this time instead of HTTP use https. If you found this tutorial useful, do share with others on Facebook & Twitter. As you may have seen, my blogwas pretty much not working between last Thursday and Saturday. I deal enough with virtual machines already at work :), I cant recommend enough DigitalOcean. We could add the redirect manually, but that means editing the .htaccess file, and if done incorrectly, your blog will break. Do you really need Sitelock CDN? Ironically, I also saw this while browsing Facebook today: So while other companies are forging ahead with free SSL, GoDaddys buckling down. At first, I thought it was internal staff made the error but even FTP client also fail. But they managed to screw the DNS installation by referring it to SiteLock DNS. And they have better uptime than the hosting Bluehost provides. I should have started with negative stories rather than positive ones I will write another blog post later on how to transfer my website. You were smarter than me! Even after fixing the issue it still says unknown or unavailable. At $60 a year for the first year, and much more after that, its shocking that the company with the largest number of hosting customers hasnt made the leap to SSL. So I contact the support once again. They actually made it worse! Move the toggle next to Free SSL certificate to on. And I have seen many stories of people migrating from Bluehost to SiteGround. So login to Bluehost. Cant tell whether theyre the best, but they sure are cheap and reliable, and thats what I want out of a hosting provider. I am not currently a big fan of Bluehost. 6 USD for your blog is indeed very cheap! Which hosting providers do you recommend? Then, turn the 301 .htaccess redirect on and the WordPress 301 redirect off. Lets Encrypt certificates are automatically renewed without manual intervention. I'm a professional blogger from Asia & This blog is created by me, after using Bluehost hosting for years. Bluehost now allows you to install free LetsEncrypt certificates for all its shared hosting plans. Thank you, this was super helpful!! So I let them do it and hoped it would be fixed during the night.
However if youre an e-commerce site, you might want to inspire as much trust as possible in your customers. Encrypting all communications between you and your clients is a purely technological solution. Which is entirely enough if the website is optimized and with the little traffic I get. Thanks for this articleit sounds like blogs and basic websites need basic encryption like Bluehosts free SSL. You can send Mr. Or they should make them compatible. RewriteRule (. The results would be shown at the top. Its a sad state of the internet. I found out that the SSL certificate was not referring to the correct address anymore. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence. I would not recommend them. I did not go deeper to read all the stories. Youre welcome Hannah. Yeah, Bluehost is a huge scam that too many bloggers exploit because of the referral program! What do you think about SiteGround? They tell me the certificate is invalid (no kidding). Please let me know Ive been trying to get them to work for awhile now and i just purchase 3 years of bluehost premium ffs. On their website, they say: Notice: CloudFlare Platinum is required for SSL (HTTPS) to function. Managing my own SSL certificates in my home is actually more efficient than what Bluehost is providing. Let me know if you havent got it fixed already. When the plugin is installed and activated you will see a new notice on your WordPress dashboard. This is where I feel SSL is badly designed. And what are the potential benefits of enabling this? This kind of thing can happen. I did not have time to argue, it was late and I wanted to go to bed. Thank you again. The service cost more than Bluehost but the service is better. So grab a cup of coffee & lets start with this epic tutorial on moving our site from HTTP to HTTPS for free. . This time, the SSL certificate is too old.
(for what setup?). Thank you so much! So, we have a lot to cover & this is going to be an extensive guide. But I have never seen anything like that. It has one of the best user ratings of all hosting providers. Already at the early beginning, I had a few issues with SSL. Optional Step 2: This is only for users using Cloudflare, This step is only for those users who are using Cloudflare as well. Home Bluehost Bluehost Free SSL Finally Arrives Will GoDaddy Follow? Ive been beating the drum for a while that its 2018 and no one needs to pay for basic SSL. Hover over your site and click Manage Site. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. They told me that there was something wrong with the SSL certificate They told me they found the mistake and were going to fix it in 3-4 hours. You can understand my frustration since I already had to deal with them the day before. It is just pure incompetence. BEFORE you go aheadand click the blue button to activate ssl, if you havent done so already, I recommend making a backup of your site just in case a conflict occurs. Thanks again. Unhappy with your web host? Yes, thats normal. In fact, Chrome started showing the warning for the site not using SSL which may affect your traffic in coming days. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC] Its little fixes like these that can eat up your time. It was super helpful and easy to follow . I started using Bluehost only a few months ago. Includes everything you need to start your online business on the right path to success. Bluehost is a big scam to me. Enabling CloudFlare Free on a website which uses SSL will cause the site to malfunction. Thank you for the info. For now, I am thinking of going with SiteGround. Click on submit & within 5 minutes you will get another email with the instruction to validate your SSL certificate installation for your domain name. The first thing Ive come across when making a website that actually worked exactly as you said it would, step by step, and also fixed another problem I had at the same time (couldnt figure out how to use my domain on all pages instead of the WP ones but this fixed it). As description of this plugin says, Really Simple SSL automatically detects your settings and configures your website to run over https. After helping 100s of bloggers with the technical aspects of running their online businesses, my mission is to ensure technology doesnt stop you from building a business and lifestyle you love. A weekly email with my Best Personal Finance and Investing articles, for free and without spam! Wayne. Seriously. This is great because by default, each cert is only valid for 90 days. From WordPress errors to CSS adjustments, permalink changes, 301 redirects, email opt-in forms, site speed optimization, landing pages, and more. Is it just me? You could use Cloudfare instead, no? Ive never used Bluehost thanks to the many horror stories, but Ive used SiteGround from the beginning and have nothing but good things to say about them. And it should be auto-renewed. @Mr. TPS: actually its 6USD for my blog. Glad it helped Lesley. The tech support person is telling me it could take 48 hours to fix it. To do this, you pay a CA (Certificate Authority) to manually verify that your business is legit, that you have an actual address and phone number and so on and so forth. After starting a WordPress blog on Bluehost, sometimes the SSL certificate functionality doesnt work as intended. We will see in the long-term. Bluehost recently added a new section call WordPress tools. From here, any existing or new Bluehost users can enable free SSL certificate. Pls help. Enable the Free SSL Certificate option as shown in the screenshot below: Encrypt data between your site and the users, Verify that your site is indeed a valid business. There must be some catch, and there usually is ;). The more you pay for an SSL, the more validation you receive. again They did that and after about 30 minutes, the site came back online. He told me to NEVER use their chat support. SSL certificates are applied to domains or subdomains. Which is sad. I couldnt quite tell from your info above what the stakes werewhy would I potentially lose access to my site? If theres anything else your struggling with right now, with WordPress, let me know. if someone need more secure he should pay, but not us. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. Mostly thanks to Lets encrypt. Ive used BlueHost for 10 years. Bluehost, I have migrated to SiteGround and kept a copy of it at AWS S3. Good luck with your migration!
(let me know if you want I think they have some win-win recommendation program). To be clear though, its very unlikely that will happen to you and if it does, its easily fixed. Thank you so much for this article, it was super helpful! And they are cheap. You will find the answer below ;). On Siteground, I have not had any issue with their SSL implementation. They also have a pretty deep knowledge base in case youre wondering how to install / configure something. Now that Bluehost offers AutoSSL, customers no longer have to worry about their free SSL certificates expiring! They told me that the renewal of the certificate did not go correctly. Thank you Kerry. Follow this guide to access your Bluehost hosting via FTP & take a backup of the wp-config.php file in the root of your domain. I am a computer scientist. Its not looking for high end validation from a CA. Hi Perry, glad the video helped you. Thank you so much Kerry, I followed your instructions which were super easy to understand so thanks so much for that! However, they are a bit too expensive for me. Problem solved in no time at all. Once activated, you will see a success message, like the screenshot below. Finally, on Saturday morning, I checked my website and, surprise, it was still not working. The propagation took over 24 hours with no useful support from their chat service. Thenchange http to httpsand click the Save Updates button. Go to Plugins >> Add New. Come Friday now! It is only available for Bluehost.com customers. It seems they are really bad at handling SSL. I went back home and I wanted to write on my blog and discovered it was not working anymore. WordPress tools is a great addon from Bluehost as it makes the managing your WordPress blog easy. On the next screen select Settings. I cant believe this information isnt available (or findable) on the Bluehost website. Thank you for this tutorial. Note:sometimes after clicking the activate button, youll be logged out of your site. Will my site still work flawlessly if i just turn off the Free SSL Certificate tab? While not perfect they are pretty responsive when issues arise and are quite cheap for WP hosting. You can verify the same by entering your domain name on this SSL checker tool. If I missed one, please tell me and I will remove it. Good to know the video worked for you and saved you time. But the rest of the story become worse. I contacted the support to fix the issue. Thanks a million! Activating your free ssl certificate from Bluehost should be as simple as flicking a button from off to on, as seen in the screenshot below. In fact, even without Lets Encrypt and AutoSSL, you can convert your site to HTTPS and use SSL for free using a service like Cloudflare. Required fields are marked *. I believe that 26 USD per month is a lot, but I do not know your performance configuration. And website edits eat away at the limited time you have to work on your business. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Another host I recommend is SiteGround. *)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]. However, in my case it showed an error saying: Error: Could not update option siteURL.,Error: Could not update option home.. They were very helpful. Just log back in and continue. As to the reasonwhy they did it, it is beyond me. Just wanted to say thank you.
I implemented my SSL certificate this morning through Bluehost, and as far as I can tell so far everything has gone as plannedthis helped me feel much more confident, since I didnt feel like it could truly be as easy as flip of the switch. But we (most normal websites oweners) just need to be OK with google, so freeSSL is what we need. I worked with Bluehost on an SSL installation in August 2018. Thus, this is also important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It has not been renewed. I can hardly believe it. Sorry to hear you are having so many issues with BH. In this post, I will show you how to fix the Bluehost free ssl certificate unavailable or unknown error in two simple steps. As long as the site is successfully redirecting to https though, all is good. How about DigitalOcean? I would prefer other services. At least, I learned a nice lesson in that you cant even trust good bloggers. On the same page scroll down to the bottom to find Automatic HTTPS rewrite & enable this option. Thanks Harsh for sharing this tutorial. All advice always help ;), Your comment may not appear instantly since it has to go through moderation. These certificates are valid for quite some time, generally one year or more. I was super overwhelmed by making the change to https but you made it super easy!
This time, the error is different. Contact me via e-mail! Theres no reason for it to be expensive. Ive never had any outage, and Ive been able to manage Lets Encrypt certificates without issues. Edit .htacess to add 301 redirection code: Also, edit your .htaccess file using Yoast SEO plugin or FTP & add following code. bluehost certificate install hosting inkz To be honest, Id rather not deal with the complexity of cloud virtual machines for now. Especially in the personal finance blog community, there are many people recommending it. Instead I get error 520, 525 or 526! Baptiste Wicht is the author behind thepoorswiss.com. But that was before the magic of Lets Encrypt and automatic free SSL. Ive never had the bad experiences you have had. Want to change your domain name without losing website traffic and SEO rankings? It also ensures that no man-in-the-middle attacks can be performed and change your data in transit. For swiss hosting, I would recommend Hoststar. One question I did have around the 301 .htaccess. As you said, there is no free lunch. One of those traps was pretending to have low prices, and then charging outrageous amounts for SSL certificates which are mandatory these days. It will still say unknown on Bluehosts end, even when SSL is successfully added to your site. After dinner, I want to finish my next article. https://pt.wordpress.org/plugins/ssl-insecure-content-fixer/. But sometimes, the free ssl certificate shows as unavailable, or as unknown for some Bluehost users. I use Go Daddy. So I trusted them. Your post is EXACTLY what I needed.
This is a first. I really wonder how they can keep clients in I will never use them again. And they are really using old school technologies. It just worked so far because of their very juicy referral programSad. Only the insecure (HTTP) version was working. There was a time when Bluehost certificate installation wasnt always a cinch. Looks like that isnt your site, lol. I can help. Today, it is very important to have a safe website. Error was showing in the settings area of the plugin, had the first 4 set up features with the exclamation mark and yellow triangle. THANK YOU! Now, its doesnt say not secure anymore but it has an i with your site is not fully secure I dont really know how to fix that , My site is https://www.lauralangheinrich.com/.
The Poor Swiss a message here. Ive been trying to solve this problem for nearly a year now. When all this can be done automatically, whats the value in a paid SSL certificate? The following two tabs change content below. He decided to cut on his expenses and increase his income. This was not so bad honestly. One reason I use them is that they were an American company hosted the next state down from me, so they are nearly the same time zone. Ive tried forever, seeking help from others and your video got me thru. I noticed you said you resolved the issue on Bluehost where SSL and Sitelock CDN are not compatible. Next time I look for a new service, I will do my full research myself. In 2019, he is saving more than 50% of his income. Now, follow the steps mentioned & lets activate SSL certificate for your website hosted on Bluehost Web hosting. I feel like Im missing some technical piece here. The best part is; by following the above steps you would ensure nothing goes wrong. Since I use various security plugins, login page hide plugin & also CloudFlare to secure my blog, that might have prevented automatic updation of site URL & home page URL. *) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L], This is another smart thing you can do to replace all existing link on your blog from http to https. To do this we will use a plugin calledReally Simple SSL. Its much cheaper for better performance for their entry options. Of course, I removed all my affiliate links from Bluehost from this website. Do you have any experience with Bluehost? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I woke up this morning to the good news that Bluehost free SSL is now available with Lets Encrypt for ALL its hosting plans not just WordPress. I am currently having issues with a clients web hosting at Bluehost, first SSL fail causing browser yo display stern warning page, now, some email addresses cannot open from any external client but can access only from Cpanel, WordPress account has been removed, luckily I only use it to redirect to custom build website and instructed tech support to point it to the root html.
Unhappy Soon to Be Former Bluehost Customer. Must do: Install Really simple SSL WordPress plugin: Now install this plugin call Really simple SSL. Your way of presentation of this blog is very good. Filed Under: Bluehost Tutorials Tagged With: HTTPS, SSL, Tutorial, WordPress. Even Google will prefer HTTPS over HTTP. Optional case 1: When Bluehost is unable to update site URL & WordPress Home URL.
So easy to follow and saved me a lot of headache. Actually I only had to complete step 1. If you have any more problems, you should simply switch. So as Googles deadline for showing warnings on all non-SSL sites draws closer, expect more and more hosting providers to give up this juicy revenue stream in favor of free SSL certificates. On this blog, I share all the tips, reviews, and tutorials related to Bluehost hosting. http://www.webpagetest.org/ I got an X for Effective use of CDN. And these last issues with the website being down for more than a day. When I'm not blogging and helping clients with WordPress, you'll find me on the beach with a good book. However, Bluehost has done installing SSL certificate for you. In this post, you will find the story behind this! Switch to self-hosted WordPress.org from Blogger, Wix, Tumblr, SquareSpace, and more. Richard. Ive been managing several websites on them. The only reason why so many people recommend them, is the affiliate program that pays a lot. Has anyone been able to get Bluehost to work with CloudFlare with SSL to work (without purchasing Platinum support)? Your email address will not be published. Thank you for sharing.
Updates can break your blog. It doesnt matter what application is running inside that domain. At Siteground, Im paying 47 EUR per year, but its shared hosting. Theyre probably banking on the fact that most small business owners dont know enough about free SSL options and will take whatever products are pushed onto them. Since this is the version that is linked everywhere, the website could be considered down. Go toMy Sites >> Manage Site. So a plugin is the simplest solution for everyone. AutoSSL trivializes this process by doing all the heavy lifting for you. Theres a trick to making it show. I followed these instructions after Bluehost tech support claimed my issue was fixed, I waited the appropriate propagation time, and it wasnt fixed. THANK YOU! And it was fixed early. But most people that recommend it, arent even using it themselves. I didnt consider DigitalOcean so far. I had many issues with Bluehost and it took them an unreasonable amount of time to fix the issue. Your email address will not be published. Youre very welcome Amber. Need to make a decision fast? I even have personal websites hosted on my own servers at home.
And to clarify, WordPress redirects work fine for most sites, but a .htaccess redirect is good for site speed. Let me know if it helped you in the comments box below. RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off The remaining is for other projects. This is the email that I got: You just need to follow the instruction by clicking the link & pasting the code. Edit the profile URL in Google Analytics from HTTP to HTTPS, Over time on all your social media profile start updating site link from HTTP to HTTPS. I am using BlueHost for a couple of months and also had good experience with. Which are not compatible together. Awesome video it worked like a charm. When I login to my cPanel account, I could not view the WordPress tools, how to access that tab? See instructions ofhow to fix it here. I am with Siteground now. Is there another CDN that people recommend? Using this plugin, you can search for all the links on your blog with http://domain.com to https://domain.com. They repeat this process each time your certificate was about to expire. Wow thank you so much, this was exactly what I needed and your video was super easy to follow. I hope that you continue to publish great content and that you do well Cheers. Before Bluehost AutoSSL integration, you had to manually generate the Lets Encrypt certificate by logging into your account via SSH and installing it manually. It turns out many people have issues with bluehost. There is an incompatibility between two services Bluehost are offering: their SSL certificates and the SiteLock CDN. Are your blog and forum hosted with them? SSL still displays as unknown in Bluehost, but my site shows as secure in Chrome, works with https, etc. But now Bluehost does this on its own. So so helpful. However, before you start celebrating, there are few things that you should do: Moving your WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS is worthdoing as it adds the level of confidence among readers & also one of the search engine ranking factor. My tutorials, software reviews, and services will save you time, money, and a ton of technical headaches. Your email address will not be published. Here is the email that I received for validating domain ownership: SSL Certificate will not install automatically for: Click on the link & you need to select your email wherevalidation e-mail for your SSL certificate will be sent.
Yes, this can be nice indeed :) Another blog of mine is statically hosted as well. You saved me! AutoSSL is the cPanel/WHM functionality that automatically installs and renews free Lets Encrypt certificates every other month. You may want to contact Bluehost to see if there is a way to enable both at the same. What you can do in this case is, click on settings tab & update the URL manually. If you do not know about it, the only thing you need to secure your website is an SSL certificate. Thats good to know that they are providing such a good service :) Thank you Kerry!! Login to Cloudflare dashboard & under Crypto enable full SSL as shown in screenshot below. The encryption provided by free SSL solutions like Lets Encrypt is every bit as strong as those provided by high-end EV certificates. When you changed the url to https or when you activated the Really Simple SSL plugin ? Perhaps because I am an established account and do most of my own tech support.
I will cover about WordPress tools in detail but for now, lets stick to our main topic. Your email address will not be published. Once youve backed up, then activate SSL! Sorry to hear youre not a big fan of Bluehost. The power of static site generators :) Love it! Amazingly helpful video. Thats the best Ive used in Switzerland. Many of you might not be aware of the fact that using SSL (HTTPS) is a positive search engine ranking factor. There is no point in giving any more money to companies like as bad as bluehost. Raja Free SSL is not available for Bluehost.in customers. I Had not come across a more thorough explanation for fixing my problem before I found your directions. Thanks again Kerry, you kept me from becoming very frustrated! I have migrated my website from Bluehost to SiteGround, going to to the same with all my clients, My experience is, problems will persist probably until I buy all the security features because prior to all the mishaps, I received many of such emails telling me how vulnerable my website is. And you do not need to be a web programmer to get an SSL certificate. Most of my issues with them were also coming from SSL problems. I was using the free SSL certificate from Bluehost. Once done, now open your blog admin area again but this time instead of HTTP use https. If you found this tutorial useful, do share with others on Facebook & Twitter. As you may have seen, my blogwas pretty much not working between last Thursday and Saturday. I deal enough with virtual machines already at work :), I cant recommend enough DigitalOcean. We could add the redirect manually, but that means editing the .htaccess file, and if done incorrectly, your blog will break. Do you really need Sitelock CDN? Ironically, I also saw this while browsing Facebook today: So while other companies are forging ahead with free SSL, GoDaddys buckling down. At first, I thought it was internal staff made the error but even FTP client also fail. But they managed to screw the DNS installation by referring it to SiteLock DNS. And they have better uptime than the hosting Bluehost provides. I should have started with negative stories rather than positive ones I will write another blog post later on how to transfer my website. You were smarter than me! Even after fixing the issue it still says unknown or unavailable. At $60 a year for the first year, and much more after that, its shocking that the company with the largest number of hosting customers hasnt made the leap to SSL. So I contact the support once again. They actually made it worse! Move the toggle next to Free SSL certificate to on. And I have seen many stories of people migrating from Bluehost to SiteGround. So login to Bluehost. Cant tell whether theyre the best, but they sure are cheap and reliable, and thats what I want out of a hosting provider. I am not currently a big fan of Bluehost. 6 USD for your blog is indeed very cheap! Which hosting providers do you recommend? Then, turn the 301 .htaccess redirect on and the WordPress 301 redirect off. Lets Encrypt certificates are automatically renewed without manual intervention. I'm a professional blogger from Asia & This blog is created by me, after using Bluehost hosting for years. Bluehost now allows you to install free LetsEncrypt certificates for all its shared hosting plans. Thank you, this was super helpful!! So I let them do it and hoped it would be fixed during the night.
However if youre an e-commerce site, you might want to inspire as much trust as possible in your customers. Encrypting all communications between you and your clients is a purely technological solution. Which is entirely enough if the website is optimized and with the little traffic I get. Thanks for this articleit sounds like blogs and basic websites need basic encryption like Bluehosts free SSL. You can send Mr. Or they should make them compatible. RewriteRule (. The results would be shown at the top. Its a sad state of the internet. I found out that the SSL certificate was not referring to the correct address anymore. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence. I would not recommend them. I did not go deeper to read all the stories. Youre welcome Hannah. Yeah, Bluehost is a huge scam that too many bloggers exploit because of the referral program! What do you think about SiteGround? They tell me the certificate is invalid (no kidding). Please let me know Ive been trying to get them to work for awhile now and i just purchase 3 years of bluehost premium ffs. On their website, they say: Notice: CloudFlare Platinum is required for SSL (HTTPS) to function. Managing my own SSL certificates in my home is actually more efficient than what Bluehost is providing. Let me know if you havent got it fixed already. When the plugin is installed and activated you will see a new notice on your WordPress dashboard. This is where I feel SSL is badly designed. And what are the potential benefits of enabling this? This kind of thing can happen. I did not have time to argue, it was late and I wanted to go to bed. Thank you again. The service cost more than Bluehost but the service is better. So grab a cup of coffee & lets start with this epic tutorial on moving our site from HTTP to HTTPS for free. . This time, the SSL certificate is too old. (for what setup?). Thank you so much! So, we have a lot to cover & this is going to be an extensive guide. But I have never seen anything like that. It has one of the best user ratings of all hosting providers. Already at the early beginning, I had a few issues with SSL. Optional Step 2: This is only for users using Cloudflare, This step is only for those users who are using Cloudflare as well. Home Bluehost Bluehost Free SSL Finally Arrives Will GoDaddy Follow? Ive been beating the drum for a while that its 2018 and no one needs to pay for basic SSL. Hover over your site and click Manage Site. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. They told me that there was something wrong with the SSL certificate They told me they found the mistake and were going to fix it in 3-4 hours. You can understand my frustration since I already had to deal with them the day before. It is just pure incompetence. BEFORE you go aheadand click the blue button to activate ssl, if you havent done so already, I recommend making a backup of your site just in case a conflict occurs. Thanks again. Unhappy with your web host? Yes, thats normal. In fact, Chrome started showing the warning for the site not using SSL which may affect your traffic in coming days. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC] Its little fixes like these that can eat up your time. It was super helpful and easy to follow . I started using Bluehost only a few months ago. Includes everything you need to start your online business on the right path to success. Bluehost is a big scam to me. Enabling CloudFlare Free on a website which uses SSL will cause the site to malfunction. Thank you for the info. For now, I am thinking of going with SiteGround. Click on submit & within 5 minutes you will get another email with the instruction to validate your SSL certificate installation for your domain name. The first thing Ive come across when making a website that actually worked exactly as you said it would, step by step, and also fixed another problem I had at the same time (couldnt figure out how to use my domain on all pages instead of the WP ones but this fixed it). As description of this plugin says, Really Simple SSL automatically detects your settings and configures your website to run over https. After helping 100s of bloggers with the technical aspects of running their online businesses, my mission is to ensure technology doesnt stop you from building a business and lifestyle you love. A weekly email with my Best Personal Finance and Investing articles, for free and without spam! Wayne. Seriously. This is great because by default, each cert is only valid for 90 days. From WordPress errors to CSS adjustments, permalink changes, 301 redirects, email opt-in forms, site speed optimization, landing pages, and more. Is it just me? You could use Cloudfare instead, no? Ive never used Bluehost thanks to the many horror stories, but Ive used SiteGround from the beginning and have nothing but good things to say about them. And it should be auto-renewed. @Mr. TPS: actually its 6USD for my blog. Glad it helped Lesley. The tech support person is telling me it could take 48 hours to fix it. To do this, you pay a CA (Certificate Authority) to manually verify that your business is legit, that you have an actual address and phone number and so on and so forth. After starting a WordPress blog on Bluehost, sometimes the SSL certificate functionality doesnt work as intended. We will see in the long-term. Bluehost recently added a new section call WordPress tools. From here, any existing or new Bluehost users can enable free SSL certificate. Pls help. Enable the Free SSL Certificate option as shown in the screenshot below: Encrypt data between your site and the users, Verify that your site is indeed a valid business. There must be some catch, and there usually is ;). The more you pay for an SSL, the more validation you receive. again They did that and after about 30 minutes, the site came back online. He told me to NEVER use their chat support. SSL certificates are applied to domains or subdomains. Which is sad. I couldnt quite tell from your info above what the stakes werewhy would I potentially lose access to my site? If theres anything else your struggling with right now, with WordPress, let me know. if someone need more secure he should pay, but not us. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. Mostly thanks to Lets encrypt. Ive used BlueHost for 10 years. Bluehost, I have migrated to SiteGround and kept a copy of it at AWS S3. Good luck with your migration!
(let me know if you want I think they have some win-win recommendation program). To be clear though, its very unlikely that will happen to you and if it does, its easily fixed. Thank you so much for this article, it was super helpful! And they are cheap. You will find the answer below ;). On Siteground, I have not had any issue with their SSL implementation. They also have a pretty deep knowledge base in case youre wondering how to install / configure something. Now that Bluehost offers AutoSSL, customers no longer have to worry about their free SSL certificates expiring! They told me that the renewal of the certificate did not go correctly. Thank you Kerry. Follow this guide to access your Bluehost hosting via FTP & take a backup of the wp-config.php file in the root of your domain. I am a computer scientist. Its not looking for high end validation from a CA. Hi Perry, glad the video helped you. Thank you so much Kerry, I followed your instructions which were super easy to understand so thanks so much for that! However, they are a bit too expensive for me. Problem solved in no time at all. Once activated, you will see a success message, like the screenshot below. Finally, on Saturday morning, I checked my website and, surprise, it was still not working. The propagation took over 24 hours with no useful support from their chat service. Thenchange http to httpsand click the Save Updates button. Go to Plugins >> Add New. Come Friday now! It is only available for Bluehost.com customers. It seems they are really bad at handling SSL. I went back home and I wanted to write on my blog and discovered it was not working anymore. WordPress tools is a great addon from Bluehost as it makes the managing your WordPress blog easy. On the next screen select Settings. I cant believe this information isnt available (or findable) on the Bluehost website. Thank you for this tutorial. Note:sometimes after clicking the activate button, youll be logged out of your site. Will my site still work flawlessly if i just turn off the Free SSL Certificate tab? While not perfect they are pretty responsive when issues arise and are quite cheap for WP hosting. You can verify the same by entering your domain name on this SSL checker tool. If I missed one, please tell me and I will remove it. Good to know the video worked for you and saved you time. But the rest of the story become worse. I contacted the support to fix the issue. Thanks a million! Activating your free ssl certificate from Bluehost should be as simple as flicking a button from off to on, as seen in the screenshot below. In fact, even without Lets Encrypt and AutoSSL, you can convert your site to HTTPS and use SSL for free using a service like Cloudflare. Required fields are marked *. I believe that 26 USD per month is a lot, but I do not know your performance configuration. And website edits eat away at the limited time you have to work on your business. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Another host I recommend is SiteGround. *)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]. However, in my case it showed an error saying: Error: Could not update option siteURL.,Error: Could not update option home.. They were very helpful. Just log back in and continue. As to the reasonwhy they did it, it is beyond me. Just wanted to say thank you.
I implemented my SSL certificate this morning through Bluehost, and as far as I can tell so far everything has gone as plannedthis helped me feel much more confident, since I didnt feel like it could truly be as easy as flip of the switch. But we (most normal websites oweners) just need to be OK with google, so freeSSL is what we need. I worked with Bluehost on an SSL installation in August 2018. Thus, this is also important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It has not been renewed. I can hardly believe it. Sorry to hear you are having so many issues with BH. In this post, I will show you how to fix the Bluehost free ssl certificate unavailable or unknown error in two simple steps. As long as the site is successfully redirecting to https though, all is good. How about DigitalOcean? I would prefer other services. At least, I learned a nice lesson in that you cant even trust good bloggers. On the same page scroll down to the bottom to find Automatic HTTPS rewrite & enable this option. Thanks Harsh for sharing this tutorial. All advice always help ;), Your comment may not appear instantly since it has to go through moderation. These certificates are valid for quite some time, generally one year or more. I was super overwhelmed by making the change to https but you made it super easy!
This time, the error is different. Contact me via e-mail! Theres no reason for it to be expensive. Ive never had any outage, and Ive been able to manage Lets Encrypt certificates without issues. Edit .htacess to add 301 redirection code: Also, edit your .htaccess file using Yoast SEO plugin or FTP & add following code. bluehost certificate install hosting inkz To be honest, Id rather not deal with the complexity of cloud virtual machines for now. Especially in the personal finance blog community, there are many people recommending it. Instead I get error 520, 525 or 526! Baptiste Wicht is the author behind thepoorswiss.com. But that was before the magic of Lets Encrypt and automatic free SSL. Ive never had the bad experiences you have had. Want to change your domain name without losing website traffic and SEO rankings? It also ensures that no man-in-the-middle attacks can be performed and change your data in transit. For swiss hosting, I would recommend Hoststar. One question I did have around the 301 .htaccess. As you said, there is no free lunch. One of those traps was pretending to have low prices, and then charging outrageous amounts for SSL certificates which are mandatory these days. It will still say unknown on Bluehosts end, even when SSL is successfully added to your site. After dinner, I want to finish my next article. https://pt.wordpress.org/plugins/ssl-insecure-content-fixer/. But sometimes, the free ssl certificate shows as unavailable, or as unknown for some Bluehost users. I use Go Daddy. So I trusted them. Your post is EXACTLY what I needed.
This is a first. I really wonder how they can keep clients in I will never use them again. And they are really using old school technologies. It just worked so far because of their very juicy referral programSad. Only the insecure (HTTP) version was working. There was a time when Bluehost certificate installation wasnt always a cinch. Looks like that isnt your site, lol. I can help. Today, it is very important to have a safe website. Error was showing in the settings area of the plugin, had the first 4 set up features with the exclamation mark and yellow triangle. THANK YOU! Now, its doesnt say not secure anymore but it has an i with your site is not fully secure I dont really know how to fix that , My site is https://www.lauralangheinrich.com/.
The Poor Swiss a message here. Ive been trying to solve this problem for nearly a year now. When all this can be done automatically, whats the value in a paid SSL certificate? The following two tabs change content below. He decided to cut on his expenses and increase his income. This was not so bad honestly. One reason I use them is that they were an American company hosted the next state down from me, so they are nearly the same time zone. Ive tried forever, seeking help from others and your video got me thru. I noticed you said you resolved the issue on Bluehost where SSL and Sitelock CDN are not compatible. Next time I look for a new service, I will do my full research myself. In 2019, he is saving more than 50% of his income. Now, follow the steps mentioned & lets activate SSL certificate for your website hosted on Bluehost Web hosting. I feel like Im missing some technical piece here. The best part is; by following the above steps you would ensure nothing goes wrong. Since I use various security plugins, login page hide plugin & also CloudFlare to secure my blog, that might have prevented automatic updation of site URL & home page URL. *) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L], This is another smart thing you can do to replace all existing link on your blog from http to https. To do this we will use a plugin calledReally Simple SSL. Its much cheaper for better performance for their entry options. Of course, I removed all my affiliate links from Bluehost from this website. Do you have any experience with Bluehost? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I woke up this morning to the good news that Bluehost free SSL is now available with Lets Encrypt for ALL its hosting plans not just WordPress. I am currently having issues with a clients web hosting at Bluehost, first SSL fail causing browser yo display stern warning page, now, some email addresses cannot open from any external client but can access only from Cpanel, WordPress account has been removed, luckily I only use it to redirect to custom build website and instructed tech support to point it to the root html.