How to use SSL on a Joomla web site

There are a number of steps to obtaining, installing and configuring a SSL certificate for your Joomla site but it is much easier than you may think.

The first step is to obtain a SSL certificate and have it installed on your hosting account. We now offer free SSL certificates so if you are hosting your site with us, please get in touch and we can get one for you. We can also install it on your Joomla site for you are not comfortable doing it yourself.

If you are ready to give it a go yourself, here's what you need to do:

1. Once your hosting provider has issued the certificate and installed it on your account log into the backend of your Joomla site
2. Click on 'System' from the top menu and then click on 'Global Configuration' from the drop-down menu
3. Once the page has loaded, click on the 'Server' tab
4. Here you will see an option called 'Force HTTPS'. Select 'Entire Site' from the drop-down menu and then click the 'Save & Close' button
5. Next, in your web hosting control panel navigate to your file / folder viewer and edit your '.htaccess' file. Once open, copy / paste the following into the top of the file and then save the file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?coolexample\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.coolexample.com/$1 [R,L]

Finally, replace 'coolexample.com' in the example, in both places, with your domain name. For example:

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?hostingmatters\.co.uk
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.hostingmatters.co.uk/$1 [R,L]