Domain mapping error

  • Unknown's avatar
    lucalogos · Member ·

    Hi!

    I’m contacting you to ask for a help with little problem. A client of mine requested to point domain purchased on WordPress.com to a WP.org blog hosted on GoDaddy. Everything seems to be fine except for one thing – on some browsers there’s an error telling that the browser can’t establish secure connection. The same error appears on different browser and OS.

    WP.com account – sonatagridotcom.wordpress.com
    Domain – sonatagri.com

    May I ask you to help with this?

    Thanks,
    Luca

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    The problem here is that when that domain was bought on WordPress.com it was issued with an SSL certificate and indexed by search engines over https.

    However, when you pointed the IP address to GoDaddy that SSL certificate no longer applied, which is why you’ll see an error when loading the domain over https. If you make sure to only use the http version of the link you shouldn’t see the error.

    Search engines might still give the https link for a while until they reindex the site at the new hosting.

    Another solution is to set up SSL for the site with GoDaddy, or via Cloudflare. In that case the site will again be served over https and shouldn’t give an error any more.

  • Unknown's avatar
    lucalogos · Member ·

    Thank you, that makes sense!

    Is it possible to disable SSL certificate on domain purchased with WP.com?

    Thanks,
    Luca

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi Luca,

    Our SSL certificate was disabled the moment you mapped the domain away from us. The problem is the site’s URL is indexed as https by search engines, and that causes a problem, as search engines give the link as https, but the site can only load over http.

    You’ll either need to set up SSL with the new host so the https link still works, or wait for search engines to update their listings so they show the http version of the link again. This type of change usually takes a few weeks with most search engines.

  • Unknown's avatar
    lucalogos · Member ·

    Hi kokkieh,

    Site was accessed directly, to be honest, not by search engines. At the beginning all major browsers had the same problem, except Google Chrome. Now it appears that only Safari still shows the security issue.

    I’ve installed WordPress two times on newly purchased GoDaddy plan to rule out problem with hosting. My client would rather not pay anything more. If we decide to not purchase SSL on Godaddy, is waiting the only way to resolve this?

    Thanks,
    Luca

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    For the browsers the problem is the cache. If you’d previously loaded the URL on the browser while it was still https, the browser will automatically load it over https the next time unless you explicitly type the full URL starting with http into the address bar. Clearing the browser cache should resolve that.

    For search engines, waiting for them to reindex the domain is the only option if you don’t want to add SSL at GoDaddy.

    Keep in mind that there are free SSL options out there – you don’t need to pay GoDaddy to issue a certificate, though they might require you to be on a certain hosting plan to add an SSL certificate of your own. On WordPress.com we issue free SSL certificates to all domains hosted here using Let’s Encrypt:
    https://letsencrypt.org/

    And it’s also possible to get free SSL through Cloudflare:
    https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/

    You might be able to use one of those options with GoDaddy, but you’ll need to ask them about it.

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