Check You Website for Unsecure Links
How you link internally and externally can have an impact on your website, visitors experience and reputation.
Find out more in this short technical SEO bite-sized lesson.
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HTTPS Checker: https://httpschecker.net/
Video Script:
You don’t want to have unsecure links on your website.
Now that you know that security on your site is important for ranking as well as your privacy obligations,
covered in this post: https://www.2waydigital.com/website-s...,
this is something you’ll need to check from time to time.
All links should be HTTPS.
Why Unsecure Links Need to be Secured?
First off, it’s best practice and you’re trying to deliver the best experience to your visitors you can.
Next, it means you don’t rely on your redirection working flawlessly without fault forever – even though it should (bugs, errors, omissions and human error aside).
If, for example, an image on your page is linked via HTTP, it means the whole page could be delivered as unsecure.
What Else to Check.
As well as all links to images, also check downloadable content such as PDFs, links to other websites and even social media platforms.
Anywhere there is a link on your website whether internal or external, it should always start with HTTPS.
There are many tools out there that can help you with this such as:
HTTPS Checker - Easily Find unsecure LinksClick To Check It Out
This is a free to use tool that will quickly show you if you have any mixed content pages as well as a number of other common issues.
Finding the Problem
Find the problem
Running the HTTPS check will highlight:
Active Mixed/Insecure Content
Passive Mixed/Insecure Content
Insecure Forms
Insecure Redirects
Insecure Canonical Links
Insecure Links to the Same Domain
Insecure Social Links
Insecure Sitemap(s)
SSL Certificate Validation/Issues
Fixing the Problem
Fix the link
If everything checks out okay, you’re done.
Should you have errors reported, you’ll need to take a closer look at the problem by clicking the reveal button (downloaded version) to see which pages have which issues.
Fixing WordPress
This can be a little more tricky.
If a plug-in is causing the issue, such as AMP or the XML Feed, then you ay not be able to fix the issue directly.
Why?
The AMP pages are created by the plug-in and you don’t control how they work. Even built-in functionality from WordPress can cause problems such as the XML feed.
As another example, my site currently has Insecure iFrame Errors that refer to embedded YouTube videos.
All YouTube video share links are HTTPS but there are unsecure references to the YT vids on my site.
Crazy
Crazy right!
Another error I spotted was unsecure images on my AMP generated pages.
None of my images can be shown as unsecure because my WordPress Media Library is stored in an Amazon S3 Bucket. Yet, some unsecure links have still popped up.
That’s nothing I did. 😯
Too weird…
Now, you may be wondering, what am I going to do to fix it?
At the time of writing, not a lot. I know, it slightly contradicts what I was saying about bugs, errors, omissions and human error. However, I know my site is set up such that HTTP is not available on my website, nor on the external websites I link to. Therefore, the browsing experience is safe and quite secure at this time.
I will look into it soon enough. 😀
Fixing Most Other Websites
All you have to do is change the link from HTTP to HTTPS.
Linking to HTTP Websites
No Way - Don't Do It
If you want to link to an external website and it has no SSL certificate and HTTPS is not available, you should ask yourself if you really want to send your valued visitors there.
I personally don’t send my visitors to unsecure sites.
I have taken the time, trouble and effort to make my website safe and secure. I am adding valuable content and I am building up my reputation. If the same cannot be said of a website I am sending visitors to, they do not deserve the link in the first place.
Just me?
Feel free to ask any questions in the comments or join us in our property group.
Join Our Facebook Group: https://PropertyGroup
Full Blog Post: https://www.2waydigital.com/check-you...
HTTPS Checker: https://httpschecker.net/