SSL, www issue. Should we buy WWW license or just add redirect from www to non-www site?

[Ryan_V]

Hi,

We've installed SSL certificate (Symantec Safe Site).
Now our site shows with https, but when someone types www before site name it leads to http and shows strikethrough https unsafe icon in the browser.

As it appears, our SSL was purchased without www domain name license.

Should we buy www license or just add redirect from www to without www site? If so how to set up this redirect properly.

Thanks.

[MoosaHemani]

I am not a developer myself but I can say if you have purchased HTTPs for SEO purposes, adding a redirection will help but if you have actually added https because of the visitors and providing security to the website in that case this might not help.

The best is to contact your server and discuss an issue with that and I am sure they will be able to resolve this issue.

Hope this help!

[undivided]

Moosa Hemani I agree with you. You are right.

[TheWebMastercom]

Can you not just ask them to reissue with the WWW's?  I would definitely speak to them before doing anything.

If you had purchased with the www's it should have covered both the non www, and the www version.

[TheWebMastercom]

Also, have you checked your .htaccess redirect.  This may help:

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off

First rewrite to HTTPS:

Don't put www. here. If it is already there it will be included, if not

the subsequent rule will catch it.

RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

Now, rewrite any request to the wrong domain to use www.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.
RewriteRule .* https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

[max.favilli]

regardless of https you should redirect

choose if you want to show www or not in the url and redirect the other

that of course if the content is the same, if you are serving different content it's another story

ssl certificates come as standard or wildcard, if you need to secure a bunch of third level domains it maybe cheaper to get a wildcard

[Ryan_V]

I did. But I bought SSL though re-sellers and they are giving me hard time. Probably will cancel the order and buy it from godaddy. Descent price, good tech support.

[Ryan_V]

Yep, thanks. Content is the same. Will do redirect.