Martín Mejía asked 8 years ago
Can I install a wordpress installation with protocol http:// and after setting all change to protocol https:// ?
Shawn Hesketh answered 8 years ago
Hi Martín,
The short answer is that you can, but it's not a good idea. It's better to start with https if at all possible.
The biggest reason for this is search engines. If you build your site and it gets indexed by search engines at the non-secure, http URL, then you'll have to create 301 redirects for each and every page in your site when you change the URL to the secure, https version.
As far as search engines are concerned: http://www.yoursite.com is a completely different site than: https://www.yoursite.com and if you don't handle this transition properly, you could lose any SEO rankings you may have earned thus far.
As for HOW to change from http to https in WordPress, once your SSL certificate is activated and installed (which we will not cover here, since it varies, depending on which provider you purchase your SSL from), log into your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Settings > General.
Change the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) from http:// to: https:// and save your changes.
It's also a good idea to enforce SSL for your WordPress administration area. To do so, edit the wp-config.php file for your site to add the following:
define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
There are other considerations, however. If your site uses a CDN to serve images, JavaScript, or CSS stylesheets, you'll also need to change those URLs from http to https or else your pages will not be served securely, and visitors may receive a warning, informing that your site is insecure and should be not trusted. You don't want that.
The same applies to any links, images, or buttons you may have created in your site's pages and posts. Every link on a page must be secure (e.g. https://) or else that page/post on your site will not be secure.
For all these reasons and more, it's a good idea to start with a secure, https version of your site, if at all possible.
If you need more help, you may want to reach out to your web hosting provider and ask them to handle the transition for you. Or, if your web host doesn't provide that level of service, you can hire one of the experts from Codeable to have them take care of it for you: https://wp101.com/help/
Hope this helps!