Cloud Flare free SSL option...

jasonwitt · ‎01-17-2017

So I have been using Cloud Flare for several months and have been pleased with the page speed increase benefits. My understaind is that Google is going to start pushing SSL even more in 2017 by having Chrome users see a warning in Search Results that non-HTTPS sites are not secure. So I tried adding the free Cloud Flare SSL which redirects everything to HTTPS and shows the SECURE bar in the browser. Problem is it creates new problems such as the website contact forms no longer inform users when information has been submitted, RSS feeds no longer work, and I assume Sitemaps are all wrong since they don’t reference HTTPS.

My questions are:

Is this free Cloud Flare SSLoption going to create major problems indexing my site in Google?
Is my only option to get SSL by upgrading my Weebly plan vs. buying through my domain registrar GoDaddy?
Do you recommend sites upgrade to SSL or just stay non-secure going forward. I have heard making the switch can also lead to massive SEO problems for several months after the switch. My site doesn’t need to be secure, but I know Google currently gives a small ranking boost for SSL and it appears they are going to push it more going forward.
Can I still use Cloud Flare (really like the page speed increase) if I upgrade my Weebly site to SSL and have Cloud Flare utilize the Weebly SSL certificate?

Adam7 · ‎01-18-2017

The only option for SSL with your site right is to upgrade and enable the option on the Settings tab. Not only does this add and configure the certificate itself, but it also updates any linked resources in your code to use secure URLs.

newyorkave · ‎01-27-2017

I strongly recommend against using Cloud Flare for SSL.

Why?

The sitemap automatically generated by Weebly will still show the URL structures as http, not https. Meaning, the sitemap you've submitted to Google Webmaster Tools will be inaccurate and in theory, create broken links. You and your visitors may never see the broken links, but Google will.

We tried this on a few SquareSpace and Weebly sites before and it backfired long-term, big time. It's worth the cash to do it right by getting on Weebly's business package. Otherwise, go without SSL.

paidfocusgroups · ‎06-21-2017

And Weebly does the sitemap indexing. Don't blame Cloudflare for that. And when the moderators here say "the only way to..." is because Weebly is unable to doo something that most reputable hosts can do with ease.

ShaneG · ‎01-18-2018

You can manually update the sitemap that weebly creates by replacing "http" with "https" and uploading it to Google webmaster and Bing webmaster. remember to upload the modified sitemap.xml also to your site (Edit theme - Assests).

It does work but I agree it would be nice if weebly had default SSL for all levels of hosting.

PS. Cloudflare does more than just SSL. Some of it's other feature are well worth having.

Pistle · ‎09-29-2020

If you have a personal website or a blog, StartCom will give you one unlimited domain-validated SSL/TLS certificate completely free. All you need to do to get this free certification is to validate that you own the domain. This can take a few minutes or a few hours at the most, and you can validate it over email.