How-to · Beginner · 10 minutes
How to Force HTTPS on Your Site
Everything you need to every visitor landing on the encrypted address, with nothing left behind on http — the steps in order, the snag to watch, and the tip our support desk gives everybody.
Straight answer first
The job: every visitor landing on the encrypted address, with nothing left behind on http. Time to allow: 10 minutes. Skill needed: beginner.
Below you get the exact steps, the classic snag, and a tip from the support desk. Where our platform handles a step for you, the guide says so rather than making you do the robot's work.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
Beginner
Skill needed
5
Stages to finish
Free
Help included
Tested
On our own kit
This guide assumes no expertise at all — just a hosting account, a browser and 10 minutes of attention. Every instruction works on our platform exactly as written, and carries over to any standard cPanel host.
Rule of the road: read the snag section before you begin rather than after. It is harvested from the tickets of people who did it the other way round.
The whole job at a glance
Here is the route in full: prove the padlock works first, use the panel's own switch, or write the rule in .htaccess, point wordpress at the https address and clear out the leftover http assets.
Each stage is a few minutes of steady clicking — the time it takes depends mostly on how familiar the control panel already feels. The detailed steps sit further down this page; skim the whole route once before you begin.
Read this before the first click
Redirect loops caused by two rules doing the same work. The panel toggle, a plugin and an .htaccess rule can end up chasing each other in circles. Pick one mechanism, configure it properly, and switch the others off.
It is worth learning because it is not some rare edge case — it is the single most common reason this task turns into a support ticket. Knowing it up front turns the whole job from risky into routine.
The trick worth borrowing
Once https has run cleanly for a few weeks, add an HSTS header so browsers stop trying http altogether. It is one line for a permanent gain — just do not set a long duration until you are certain everything is covered.
Small habits like this are the real difference between people who find hosting easy and people who find it stressful. The tools are identical; the working method is not.
The parts we have already done for you
Several steps in this guide exist only because hosting historically made you do them. On our plans SSL issues itself, backups run daily without being asked, and one-click installers replace the manual setup entirely. What is left is the part that is genuinely yours.
And when a step misbehaves anyway, support answers at any hour with the actual fix, not a knowledge-base link and a shrug. Half our best guides began life as a pattern in the ticket queue.
Why the job is simpler on our plans
Every walkthrough on our how-to shelf is tested on the platform we actually run — cPanel, LiteSpeed, NVMe, one-click installs — so the instructions match your screen instead of gesturing vaguely at it.
Bring an existing site and we shift it across at no charge — usually inside 24 hours, with nothing going dark while we work.
- Step by step, tested exactly as printed
- The snag flagged before you reach it
- The dull steps are already automated
- People on hand at any hour if you stall
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Scoped honestly
Every visitor landing on the encrypted address, with nothing left behind on http is a beginner-level task — this guide budgets 10 minutes and says which steps the platform absorbs.
The snag, named early
The classic mistake for this exact job is flagged before step one, so 10 minutes stays 10 minutes.
No jargon toll
Terms are explained where they appear or linked to the glossary — nothing assumes you already know.
Works exactly as written
Every step tested on the platform we run — no 'your host may differ' hand-waving anywhere.
5 steps, no filler
Each stage is a few minutes of steady clicking, with the fiddly parts marked as fiddly.
Written from real tickets
Our guides come off the support desk, so the snags flagged here are the ones people genuinely hit.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Prove the padlock works first
Sending everybody to a broken https page is worse than leaving the redirect off. Visit the https address directly and confirm it loads cleanly before you force anyone there.
- 2
Use the panel's own switch
cPanel's Domains page carries a Force HTTPS toggle per domain. That is the tidy, config-level redirect, and it covers the whole site in one move.
- 3
Or write the rule in .htaccess
The classic RewriteRule pushing http to https does the same job explicitly. Worth choosing when you want the rule kept with the site's own code and version history.
- 4
Point WordPress at the https address
Settings → General should read https. WordPress writing http links onto an https site makes every single click take an unnecessary extra redirect.
- 5
Clear out the leftover http assets
A database search-replace for embedded http references — images above all — finishes the job. The padlock should hold on every page, not on most of them.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- A free SSL certificate on every plan, reissued before it lapses
- Real people on the counter, every hour of every day
- LiteSpeed caching running at the server, not bolted on by plugin
- Mailboxes that carry your own domain name
- cPanel, the panel the rest of the trade already knows
- NVMe SSD storage on every shelf, not just the top one
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- PHP versions picked per site from the panel
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Will forcing HTTPS hurt my rankings?
It helps. https is a ranking signal, and the 301 redirects carry existing value across with them. Search Console will start treating the https addresses as canonical within a few weeks — that is the move completing, not a fault.
The browser says 'too many redirects' — what now?
Two mechanisms are fighting: usually a plugin redirect plus the panel or .htaccess rule, or a proxy in front sending traffic back round again. Turn off everything but one redirect source, clear the caches, and the loop stops.
Can I set the PHP version myself?
Yes — PHP versions are chosen per site from the control panel, so an old application and a current one can sit side by side on the same account. Extensions and per-site settings live in the same screen, and none of it needs a support ticket.
How do I pay, and does it bill again on its own?
Orders go through a secure checkout by credit or debit card, and the renewal is taken at the same price you first paid. Every invoice sits in the client area for you to read, and switching auto-renewal off is a toggle in your account rather than a phone call.
How do I read the mail when I am away from the desk?
Webmail opens in any browser, and every mailbox also speaks IMAP, POP and SMTP — so the mail app on your phone, the client on your desktop and webmail all show the same messages in the same order.
Can I bring a domain I already own?
Yes, and transfers in are routine. Unlock the name at your present registrar, collect the auth code, then start the transfer from your client area. Whatever registration time is left comes across with it, and DNS keeps answering the whole way through.
Which control panel comes with the account?
cPanel, which the whole trade already knows. That means every tutorial online matches what you see, your backups restore onto any cPanel host anywhere, and what you learn here stays useful for life. Plesk and DirectAdmin are stocked on specific plans for anyone who prefers them.
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