We do not recommend using Hide My WP Ghost to hide classes such as woocommerce and elementor (you can scroll down to the end of this article to see why).
However, since many people requested this feature, we’ve made it available starting with Hide My WP Ghost version 5, as part of our ongoing commitment to deliver solutions that best cater to our customers’ needs.
Some plugins like WooCommerce and Elementor are exclusively built for WordPress.
When their class names are detected in the site’s source-code by theme detectors, you will receive the information that your website is using WordPress – even if all the WordPress-specific common paths are changed and hidden.
These plugins not only add their names in the source code but they also add scripts in JS and CSS files based on those class names.
If you want to hide classes like woocommerce and elementor in the text mapping, make sure you follow the steps below to avoid JS and Theme Style errors.
Text Mapping
To activate this option, go to Hide My WP > Mapping > Text Mapping
Add the class names: woocommerce and elementor to then assign them different names such as: ecommerce and landingpage.
As you can see in the example below:
woocommerce becomes ecommerce
elementor becomes landingpage
Text Mapping in CSS and JS files
To activate this option, go to Hide My WP > Mapping > Text Mapping
NOTE! Enabling this option will create dynamic CSS and JS files, which will significantly slow down a site’s loading time. This is why we recommend that you use a cache plugin to optimize loading speed for your website. In Hide My WP > Plugins, we suggest a few cache plugins for you to choose from.
What can go wrong?
The website’s loading speed is affected – which is NOT good for SEO.
Even if you change the class names and load the CSS and JS dynamically, there are still browser caches, server caches, probably CDN which also caches the files – and it will take some time to refresh all the caches and see the changed classes.
Because of file caching, the class name can appear changed in some files and unchanged in others. This will lead to style and script errors in WordPress.
Almost everything that you do in WordPress is stored in databases. Your new plugins will use a database as well as the core WordPress system. Since databases contain all your information, you must do everything you can to make it more secure.
Because more often than not, hackers use bots to search for security flaws in your website, it is not a good idea to have a default database name and prefix for your WP database.
If you had installed WordPress by yourself, you will remember that you had to input database information like the name of your new database, username, and a database prefix. The Standard WordPress prefix for databases is wp_ and that is the one you want to change.
Solid Security Tool (previous iThemes Security)
To apply a new prefix, you just need to verify that the wp-config.php is writable and that the Alter rights of the database are enable.
A single entry is needed: the new database prefix. The plugin will generate a new one for you. You only have to press the button if you are okay with the generated prefix. Of course, the prefix will be added randomly.
Go to the WordPress dashboard.
Go to the ‘plugins’ tab and click on ‘add new.’
Search Solid Security in WordPress plugin repository.
Click the Install button to install Solid Security on your site.
Click the Activate button to activate this plugin.
Even if WP-Rocket doesn’t have a free version of the cache plugin, we tell you that it worth buying it as it’s probably the best cache plugin on the market.
The WP-Rocket has all the features you need to optimize the WordPress site speed to 100%.
WP-Rocket is focused on the website speed loading and not on security. It works great with the Hide My WP Ghost plugin.
WP-Rocket has the option to Combine all CSS and JS files and also the inline styles.
With a bit of setup, WP Rocket + Hide My WP Ghost will help you secure your website & hide the plugins and themes from Themes Detectors.
To hide all CSS and JSS you need to follow the steps to Combine the JS and CSS files into one file. Let’s see how you can do this with the WP-Rocket plugin.
WP-Rocket > File Optimization > Combine JS Files
The plugin comes with the option to Minify & Combine the JS Files into one file. As we tested the plugin this is working really well with Change Paths in Cache Files option in Hide My WP Ghost.
Combine JS Files
The Combine JavaScript Files option will combine all of your JavaScript files into a single file.
Combine CSS and JS files will still result in a speed bump for certain types of WordPress sites, so we recommend testing your page speed with this option enabled and disabled.
Note! To hide the plugins’ JS URLs, make sure you activate the option “Combine JS-files” in WP-Rocket > File Optimization and let Hide My WP Ghost change the paths in the cached file.
WP-Rocket > File Optimization > Combine CSS Files
The plugin also comes with the option to Minify/Combine the CSS Files into one file.
Combine CSS Files
WP-Rocket “Combine CSS files” option will combine all of your CSS files into a single file.
Note! To hide all the plugins’ css files you need to activate the option “Combine CSS files” in WP-Rocket and let Hide My WP Ghost change the paths in the cached file.
Hide WP-Rocket cache path
Now that all the CSS and JS are combined, these files are present in the cache directory.
By default, the cache path is /cache/min/ but the URLs inside the cache are /cache/min/1/wp-content/ & /cache/min/1/wp-includes/ where 1 is the site ID.
Hide My WP Ghost will map and hide the WP-Rocket cache URL in Hide My WP > Mapping > URL Mapping:
To activate Hide My WP Ghost to change the paths in the cache file, go to Hide My WP > Tweaks > Change Paths in Cache Files and the plugin will automatically change the paths in background using WP Cron.
As Flywheel stands apart from most other managed WordPress hosting companies by offering a number of features for both web designers and developers, more and more companies are moving to Flywheel server.
Flywheel is a Nginx based hosting and it will require some extra setup after you install Hide My WP Ghost plugin on your server.
Please follow this tutorial step by step to set up the Hide My WP Ghost for Flywheel server:
In your WordPress dashboard, go to Hide My WP > Change Paths
Select the Safe Mode or Ghost Mode, scroll down and customize the paths as you like
Note! Do not logout until you set all the redirects and they were activated by the Flywheel server.
5. Clear the Flywheel Cache to load the new paths from your website. If you have other cache plugins installed on your website, you need to clear the cache on those plugins too.
6. After the redirects are added in the Flywheel Redirect tool, click the “Frontend Login Test” and see if the login page is loading correctly. You can also check the website with a different browser or from incognito mode.
7. If everything loads fine in Frontend, click the button “Yes, it’s working” button. Otherwise click on “No, abort” to roll back to previous settings.
If you’re looking to improve the speed and security of your WordPress website, you may have considered using the Hide My WP Ghost and Autoptimize cache plugin. And the good news is that these two plugins are not only compatible but using them together can significantly improve your website’s performance.
Autoptimize is an optimization plugin that can help you reduce the size of your website’s CSS, JS, and HTML files. By aggregating and minifying these files, Autoptimize can speed up your website’s load times, making it a popular choice for WordPress users.
But what about security? While Autoptimize is an excellent optimization plugin, it doesn’t offer any security features. That’s where Hide My WP Ghost comes in. This powerful plugin allows you to hide your WordPress themes and plugins from Theme Detectors, making it harder for hackers to identify vulnerabilities on your website.
By using Hide My WP Ghost and Autoptimize together, you can significantly improve your website’s speed and security.
Let’s take a closer look at how these two plugins work together to optimize your website.
Combining CSS and JS files
One of the key features of Autoptimize is the ability to combine CSS and JS files into a single file. This can significantly reduce the number of HTTP requests your website needs to make, which can improve load times.
To enable this feature in Autoptimize, go to the “Optimize” tab and check the “Optimize CSS Code” and “Optimize JavaScript Code” options. Then, check the “Aggregate inline CSS” and “Aggregate inline JavaScript” options to combine inline code with the rest of your website’s files.
Note that enabling these options may increase the size of your Autoptimize cache, so it’s best to test your website’s performance with and without these features enabled.
Hiding your WordPress plugins and themes
By default, WordPress websites reveal information about the plugins and themes they use. This can make it easier for hackers to identify vulnerabilities and attack your website. Hide My WP Ghost can help you hide this information, making it harder for hackers to target your site.
To enable this feature in Hide My WP Ghost, go to the “Settings” tab and check the “Hide WordPress” option. This will change the paths of your WordPress files, making it harder for hackers to identify the plugins and themes you’re using.
Changing the cache path
By default, Autoptimize stores cached files in the /core/cache/autoptimize/ directory. This can reveal that you’re using the plugin, which could make your website a target for attacks.
To change the cache path, you can use the “Cache Path” option in the Autoptimize settings. Simply enter a custom directory name to hide the fact that you’re using the plugin.
Using Hide My WP Ghost, you can also change the paths of cached files. This can help to further hide the fact that you’re using Autoptimize.
To enable this feature in Hide My WP Ghost, go to the “Tweaks” tab and check the “Change Paths in Cache Files” option. This will automatically change the paths of cached files, making it harder for hackers to identify the files you’re using.
Conclusion
Using Hide My WP Ghost and Autoptimize together can significantly improve the speed and security of your WordPress website. By combining CSS and JS files, you can reduce load times and improve performance. And by hiding information about your WordPress plugins and themes, you can make it harder for hackers to identify vulnerabilities on your site.
By changing the cache path of Autoptimize and using Hide My WP Ghost to change the paths of cached files, you can further improve the security
Note! If WordPress cron is deactivated on your website, you can manually click to change the paths once the files are cached.
This is the question we asked ourselves as a software company many years ago when we switched our business to WordPress CMS. It’s hard to trust an open-source CMS where our websites will probably end up being hacked.
As a developer, I wanted to know how to protect my WordPress website and how to protect my clients’ websites. I started studying WordPress CMS, its weak points and strong points and I found out that not the WordPress core itself is the main issue but the installed plugins and themes.
Many free plugins and themes were built by beginner programmers without any security knowledge and frankly, they probably didn’t even care about their users. As WordPress CMS can’t work without a plugin or a theme, most probably each production website had installed, at one point, a vulnerable plugin or a theme.
How To Protect My WordPress Website
Luckily, there are many security plugins now that verify the plugin integrity and vulnerability but they can’t keep up with all the last updates and the new plugins on the market.
About 4 years ago our company came up with the idea of creating a security plugin that will protect all the vulnerable plugins and themes by blocking the attacks on the common WordPress URLs and Paths.
This idea led us to create the Hide My WP Ghost plugin. A plugin that allows you to change all the common paths with hidden paths and block the hacker’s bots access to the known vulnerable paths.
We successfully reduced the number of SQL and Script injection attacks up to 99% with the Hide My WP Ghost plugin. We significantly reduced the number of Brute Force and XSS Attacks.
The best part is that Hide My WP Ghost works together with all other security plugins on the market by adding a layer of security for each business.
We look forward on keeping WordPress the safest open-source CMS and reducing the bot attacks as low as possible.
Secure Hosting Companies
Choosing a safe hosting is also important when you create a website for your business. There are many WordPress dedicated hosting companies who offer security and management.
Note! Keep in mind to choose a plan that will keep a daily backup on your website’s data.
Once you have a secure hosting plan and security plugins installed on your server, you don’t have to worry about getting hacked and you can focus on getting the best out of your online business.
First I want to congratulate the authors of the Really Simple SSL plugin who created such a simple and efficient plugin.
Now, Hide My WP Ghost works well with most of the Really Simple SSL options.
The only option that needs a bit of attention,if the 301 redirect with .htaccess which adds the rewrite rules in the .htaccess file after the Hide My WP Ghost rules.
To make sure the plugins are working together well after you save the options in Really Simple SSL plugin, save the settings in Hide My WP Ghost too. This way the rules are moved to the beginning or the .htaccess file.
# BEGIN rlrssslReallySimpleSSL
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
# END rlrssslReallySimpleSSL
Note! If the .htaccess file is not writable, make sure you manually move the Really Simple SSL rewrite rules to the beginning of the .htaccess file and save the file.
Connect your website using the API key from the plugin description in the Plugins tab
Once you connected your plugin, Hide My WP Ghost will know how to handle the compatibility and you will be able to connect to your admin area directly from the Manage WP panel.
Using an Open Source CMS with open-source plugins and themes it’s giving a hard time preventing all the hack attacks to your WordPress site.
Many plugins are created by authors who don’t know how to completely secure them. The same with the themes’ authors.
Prevent Hack Attacks
Fortunately, there are security plugins that are built to help you protect your website and prevent hack attacks. Some of them are popular on WordPress: Wordfence, iThemes, Shield Security, etc.
Most of these plugins are working to identify if your website was already hacked but what’s also important is to add a layer on your WordPress site to proactively stop a virus.
The best and simplest way to do this is to change all the known vulnerable paths for all plugins and themes. To do this, you can install Hide My WP Ghost plugin.
Hide My WP Ghost works together with other security plugins and hides the paths from hackers’ bots, stopping all Script and SQL injections. You can also include Brute Force protection to your login page if you want to use only one security plugin for your website.
Hide My WP Ghost 5.0.12 brings new ways customize or hide the classes from your source code.
Hide Class Name
If you want to completely hide a class use the {blank} pattern to accomplish that.
Random Class Name
If you want to set a random id for a specific class, use the {rand} pattern to accomplish that.
The most common classes used by WordPress and can be detected by theme detectors are those who contain the prefix wp-. Check the website source code and see if you find classes with wp- and add them in the Text Mapping.
Check the frontent every time
Check the frontent to make sure that the class you’re mapping it’s not used by the WordPress Theme.
Demo Text Mapping in Hide My WP Ghost
Here is a list of classes we usually add in Text Mapping for our WordPress websites:
Once you installed Hide My WP Ghost plugin on your website, the plugin will add by default a widget in the WordPress Dashboard with the security status for every single day.
Hide My WP Ghost Widget in Dashboard
In this widget, the plugin verifies the critical tasks from Security Check like Brute Force on login path, Script Insertion, SQL Insertion, XML-RPC Vulnerability, SSL security, HTML Headers and more.
You will get a level of security based on how many vulnerabilities were found and you can check the full report with a simple click.
Activate/Deactivate Hide My WP in Dashboard
To activate/deactivate the widget, simply go to Screen Options and check/uncheck the Hide My WP box.
Activate Hide My WP Ghost in Dashboard
Hide My WP widget on WP Multisite
To see the Hide My WP widget on WP Multisite, go to one of the sub-sites’ Dashboard. The widget will not load while connected on the network dashboard.
After you install Hide My WP Ghost plugin and select Safe Mode or Ghost Mode, make sure you follow the instruction based on your server type after you save the settings.
Now, if you followed all the notifications from Hide My WP settings, there are some situations when the website loads slower in frontend or the theme is now showing correctly:
Attention! Please check the rewrite rules in the config file. Some URLs passed through the config file rules and are loaded through WordPress which may slow down your website or not load correctly.
On Apache & Litespeed servers
1. All the rewrite rules are loaded through .htaccess file which works instantly for Apache and Litespeed servers. If the rewrites are not loaded through .htaccess, they are handled by WordPress redirects and as they use more resources, they will load slower.
To make sure the rules are loaded through .htaccess you need to first check the .htaccess file and you should see the rules starting with #BEGIN HMWP_RULES and ending with #END HMWP_RULES like in this example:
# BEGIN HMWP_RULES
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?ajax$ /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+/)?custom-admin/(.*) /wp-admin/$2 [QSA,L]
..........</IfModule>
# END HMWP_RULES
Also, make sure to activate AllowOverride All for your directory. See how to do this:
If Hide My WP Ghost detects the rewrites are handled by WordPress and not by the config file you will get a notification in the Hide My WP settings after you check your website as a visitor:
Solution: After the settings are saved, change the .htaccess to read-only or to 0440 if you have Linux. This way the rules will not be removed by other plugins.
2. If you activate the Text Mapping in CSS and JS option, all the CSS and JS URLs will load dynamically as this is the only option to change the text in these files. Even with a cache plugin, you may experience a slower website as the CSS and JS are not cached on the first call.
If you want to use this option, use a cache plugin like Autoptimize or WP Rocket and Combine all the CSS and JS files into one. Set the cache to be deleted once a week or even once a month.
We encourage you to switch off the option Text Mapping in CSS and JS files including caches as it’s not improving the security but only hides classes and ids from theme detectors.
On Nginx servers
1. All the rewrite rules are loaded through nginx.conf file which works instantly for Nginx servers. If the rewrites are not loaded through nginx.conf file, they are handled by WordPress redirects and as they use more resources, they will load slower.
Make sure the rules are loaded through nginx.conf and you restarted Nginx server after you changed the paths.
Check if you have the line include path_to_file/hidemywp.conf in nginx.conf file as detailed in these examples:
If Hide My WP Ghost detects the rewrites are handled by WordPress and not by the config file you will get a notification in the Hide My WP settings after you check your website as a visitor:
On Windows IIS servers
1. All the rewrite rules are loaded through web.config file which works instantly for IIS servers with URL Rewrites 2 tool installed. If the rewrites are not loaded through web.config file, they are handled by WordPress redirects and as they use more resources, they will load slower.
Make sure you added the rules in web.config and restarted IIS server after you changed the paths.
If Hide My WP Ghost detects the rewrites are handled by WordPress and not by the config file you will get a notification in the Hide My WP settings after you check your website as a visitor:
Other servers
For servers like Amazon Bitnami, Inmotion, WPEngine, Godaddy, Google Cloud, Flyweel, Kinsta, WPMUDEV, RunCloud, etc. please make sure you followed the instruction from Hide My WP Ghost after you saved the settings:
Over 90,000 hacking attacks per minute strike WordPress sites and WordPress hosting around the world, hitting not only large corporate websites packed with sensitive data but also sites belonging to small businesses, independent entrepreneurs, and individuals running personal blogs.
In such an environment, ensuring the security of your WordPress site is crucial.
However, it is not necessary to install all the security plugins available online. Instead, selecting the right combination of plugins can provide comprehensive protection without redundancy.
WP Hide & Security Enhancer is designed to hide your WordPress core files, login page, theme, and plugin paths from being visible on the front end. This plugin offers a significant improvement in site security by making it difficult for attackers to identify that your site is running on WordPress.
Key features of WP Hide & Security Enhancer
Hiding WordPress Core Files: This feature conceals the core WordPress files, making it harder for attackers to target known vulnerabilities.
Hiding Login Page: By changing the login URL, this plugin prevents attackers from accessing the standard WordPress login page, reducing the risk of brute-force attacks.
Hiding Theme and Plugin Paths: Concealing theme and plugin paths helps prevent attackers from exploiting known vulnerabilities in specific themes and plugins.
HTML Cleanup: WP Hide & Security Enhancer can remove WordPress fingerprints from the HTML code, further obscuring the fact that the site is powered by WordPress.
While WP Hide & Security Enhancer provides robust security through obscurity, Hide My WP Ghost takes this approach to the next level with additional features and functionalities that enhance the overall security of your WordPress site.
Hide My WP Ghost
Hide My WP Ghost is more than just a security through obscurity solution; it is a comprehensive security plugin designed to protect your WordPress site from a wide range of threats.
In addition to hiding WordPress common paths, themes, and plugin names, Hide My WP Ghost offers several advanced features that make it a superior choice for WordPress security.
Key Features of Hide My WP Ghost
Security Through Obscurity: Hide My WP Ghost hides all WordPress common paths, making it difficult for attackers to identify and exploit vulnerabilities. However, Hide My WP Ghost does not physically change the paths to avoid compatibility issues and massive problems.
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): This feature adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to verify their identity using a second form of authentication, such as a code sent to their mobile device. This significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access.
Temporary Login: Hide My WP Ghost allows you to create temporary login URLs that can be used to grant access to specific users for a limited time. This is particularly useful for granting temporary access to developers or support staff without compromising your primary login credentials.
8G Firewall: The 8G Firewall is a powerful firewall solution that blocks malicious requests and prevents common hacking attempts, such as SQL injections and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
Country Blocking: With this feature, you can block traffic from specific countries, reducing the risk of attacks from regions known for high levels of cybercrime. This is particularly useful for sites that do not serve an international audience.
Header Security: Hide My WP Ghost enhances your site’s security by adding HTTP security headers, which help protect against a variety of attacks, including clickjacking, MIME-type sniffing, and cross-site scripting.
Compatibility with Other Security Plugins: Hide My WP Ghost is designed to work seamlessly with other popular security plugins, such as iThemes Security, Sucuri, and Wordfence. This allows you to use Hide My WP Ghost as a complementary solution to enhance your site’s security without conflicts.
Using Hide My WP Ghost and WP Hide Together
While Hide My WP Ghost and WP Hide & Security Enhancer have some common features, they can be used together to provide an even stronger security solution for your WordPress site.
By combining the strengths of both plugins, you can achieve a higher level of security through obscurity and benefit from the advanced features offered by Hide My WP Ghost.
How to Use Both Plugins Together
Install and Configure WP Hide & Security Enhancer: Start by installing and configuring WP Hide & Security Enhancer to hide your WordPress core files, login page, and theme/plugin paths. This will provide a strong foundation of security through obscurity.
Install and Configure Hide My WP Ghost: Next, install Hide My WP Ghost and configure its advanced security features, such as 2FA, temporary login, the 8G firewall, country blocking, and header security. Ensure that the settings do not conflict with WP Hide & Security Enhancer to avoid compatibility issues.
Test Your Site: After configuring both plugins, thoroughly test your site to ensure that everything is working correctly. Check for any conflicts or issues and adjust the settings as needed to ensure optimal performance and security.
Monitor and Maintain: Regularly monitor your site for security issues and keep both plugins up to date. Staying vigilant and proactive is key to maintaining a secure WordPress site.
If you deploy a WordPress website on Google Cloud Hosting you should know that the AllowOverwrite is None by default and you can’t use the .htaccess for caching and security filters.
In order to make Hide My WP Ghost work on Google Cloud Platform just follow the next steps to activate the rewrite rules:
We made Hide My WP Ghost compatible with Godaddy and with some minor settings your website is secure.
First, make sure you don’t use the Godaddy CDN service to avoid any style loading issue. We recommend you to use external CDN services if you need CDN for your website.
Update! Since Hide My WP Ghost 5 we added the IP filter in XML-RPC to let apps like Zapier and Aliexpress to access the website xml-rpx.php and block the hackers.
Everybody knows that Zapier is a great tool when you need to create automated tasks on your WordPress site or to trigger an action when you create new posts or pages
We recently tested Zapierto create new posts in WordPress while Hide My WP Ghost plugin is activated.
We noticed that Zapier needs the xml-rpc.php file access to work properly and we switched off the option Hide My WP > Change Paths > API Security > Disable XML-RPC access. With this option off we were able to create and promote our posts on Social Media.
Having this option OFF it’s not safe for your website. Many brute force attacks are made through this URL. Sometimes you need to make compromises in order to prevent functionality issues.
The Advanced Access Manager is a great plugin which lets you customize the users rights when it comes to access the backend of your website.
It’s also a good security plugin which protects your personal information when you want to limit the access to developers who sometimes have to work on your live website.
We tested Hide My WP Ghost together with AAM plugin and we noticed that with small adjustments, the two plugins are working beautifully together.
Are you looking to move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS and install an SSL certificate on your website? We have been getting a lot of requests on this topic because Google announced that Chrome browser will start marking all websites without SSL as insecure starting July 2018. In this article, we will show you how to properly move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPs by adding a SSL certificate.
Don’t worry, if you have no idea what SSL or HTTPS is. We’re going to explain that as well.
What is HTTPS?
HTTPS or Secure HTTP is an encryption method that secures the connection between users’ browser and your server. This makes it harder for hackers to eavesdrop on the connection.
Every day we share our personal information with different websites whether it’s making a purchase or simply logging in.
In order to protect the data transfer, a secure connection needs to be created.
That’s when SSL and HTTPS come in.
Each site is issued a unique SSL certificate for identification purposes. If a server is pretending to be on HTTPS, and its certificate doesn’t match, then most modern browsers will warn the user from connecting to the website.
Now you are probably wondering, why do I need to move my WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS especially if it’s a simple blog or small business website that doesn’t collect any payments.
Why do you need HTTPS and SSL?
Last year Google announced a plan to improve overall web security by encouraging website owners to make the switch from HTTP to HTTPS. As part of this plan, their popular Chrome web browser would mark all websites without an SSL certificate as “Not Secure” starting July 2018.
As part of the announcement, Google also said that websites with SSL will also see SEO benefits and higher rankings. Since last year, a large number of websites have switched from HTTP to HTTPS.
Google has been slowly rolling out the “Not Secure” warning in Chrome. For example, if someone visits a HTTP website using the incognito window, it will be marked as Not Secure. If someone visits a HTTP website on regular mode and tries to fill out a contact form or another form, then the website will be marked as insecure.
When your readers and customers see this notice, it gives them a bad impression for your business.
This is why all websites need to move form HTTP to HTTPS and install SSL immediately.
Not to mention, if you want to accept payments online on your eCommerce website, then you need SSL.
Most payment companies like Stripe, PayPal Pro, Authorize.net, etc will require you to have a secure connection before accepting payments.
We use SSL for our websites including WPBeginner, OptinMonster, WPForms, and MonsterInsights.
Requirements for using HTTPS/SSL on a WordPress Site
The requirements for using SSL in WordPress is not very high. All you need to do is purchase an SSL certificate, and you might already have it for free.
The best WordPress hosting companies are offering free SSL certificates for all their users:
Bluehost
SiteGround
WPEngine
Liquid Web
Dreamhost
InMotion Hosting
GreenGeeks
For more details, see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress website.
If your hosting company does not offer a free SSL certificate, then you’ll need to purchase an SSL certificate.
We recommend using Domain.com because they offer the best SSL deal for both regular and wildcard SSL certificates.
By purchasing a SSL certificate from them, you also get a TrustLogo site seal for your website, and each SSL certificate comes with a minimum of $10,000 security warranty.
Once you have purchased an SSL certificate, you will need to ask your hosting provider to install it for you.
Setting up WordPress to Use SSL and HTTPs
After you have enabled SSL certificate on your domain name, you will need to set up WordPress to use SSL and HTTPs protocols on your website.
We will show you two methods to do that, and you can choose one that best fits your need.
Method 1: Setup SSL/HTTPS in WordPress Using a Plugin
This method is easier and is recommended for beginners.
First, you need to install and activate the Really Simple SSL plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » SSL page. The plugin will automatically detect your SSL certificate, and it will set up your WordPress site to use HTTPs.
The plugin will take care of everything including the mixed content errors. Here’s what the plugin does behind the scenes:
Check SSL certificate
Set WordPress to use https in URLs
Set up redirects from HTTP to HTTPs
Look for URLs in your content still loading from insecure HTTP sources and attempt to fix them.
Note: The plugin attempts to fix mixed content errors by using output buffering technique. It can have a negative performance impact because it’s replacing content on the site as the page is being loaded. This impact is only seen on first-page load, and it should be minimal if you are using a caching plugin.
While the plugin says you can keep SSL and safely deactivate the plugin, it’s not 100% true. You will have to leave the plugin active at all times because deactivating the plugin will bring back mixed content errors.
Method 2: Setup SSL/HTTPS in WordPress Manually
This method requires you to troubleshoot issues manually and edit WordPress files. However this is a permanent and more performance optimized solution. This is what we’re using on WPBeginner.
If you find this method difficult, then you can hire a WordPress developer or use the first method instead.
As part of this method, you may need to edit WordPress theme and code files. If you haven’t done this before, then see our guide on how to copy and paste code snippets in WordPress.
First, you need to visit Settings » General page. From here you need to update your WordPress and site URL address fields by replacing http with https.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save changes’ button to store your settings.
Once the settings are saved, WordPress will log you out, and you will be asked to re-login.
Next, you need to set up WordPress redirects from HTTP to HTTPS by adding the following code to your .htaccess file.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] </IfModule>
If you are on nginx servers (most users are not), then you would need to add the following code to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS in your configuration file:
server { listen 80; server_name example.com www.example.com; return301 https://example.com$request_uri; }
Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.
By following these steps, you will avoid the WordPress HTTPS not working error because WordPress will now load your entire website using https.
If you want to force SSL and HTTPS on your WordPress admin area or login pages, then you need to configure SSL in the wp-config.php file.
Simply add the following code above the “That’s all, stop editing!” line in your wp-config.php file:
define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
This line allows WordPress to force SSL / HTTPs in WordPress admin area. It also works on WordPress multisite networks.
Once you do this, your website is now fully setup to use SSL / HTTPS, but you will still encounter mixed content errors.
These errors are caused by sources (images, scripts, or stylesheets) that are still loading using the insecure HTTP protocol in the URLs. If that is the case, then you will not be able to see a secure padlock icon in your website’s address bar.
Many modern browsers will automatically block unsafe scripts and resources. You may see a padlock icon but with a notification about it in your browser’s address bar.
You can find out which content is served through insecure protocol by using the Inspect tool. The mixed content error will be displayed as a warning in the console with details for each mixed content item.
You will notice that most URLs are images, iframes, and image galleries while some are scripts and stylesheets loaded by your WordPress plugins and themes.
Fixing Mixed Content in WordPress Database
Majority of the incorrect URLs will be images, files, embeds, and other data stored in your WordPress database. Let’s fix them first.
All what you need to do is find all mentions of your old website URL in the database that started with http and replace it with your new website URL that starts with https.
You can easily do this by installing and activating the Better Search Replace plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Tools » Better Search Replace page. Under the ‘Search’ field, you need to add your website URL with http. After that, add your website URL with https under the ‘Replace’ field.
Below that, you will see all your WordPress database tables. You need to select all of them to run a thorough check.
Lastly, you need to uncheck the box next to ‘Run as dry run?’ option, and then click on ‘Run Search/Replace’ button.
The plugin will now search your WordPress database for URLs starting with http and will replace them with secure https URLs. It may take a while depending on your WordPress database size.
Fixing Mixed Content Errors in WordPress Theme
Another common culprit causing mixed content error is your WordPress theme. Any decent WordPress theme following WordPress coding standards will not cause this issue.
First, you will need to use your browser’s Inspect tool to find the resources and where they are loading from.
After that, you will need to find them in your WordPress theme and replace them with https. This will be a little difficult for most beginners, as you will not be able to see which theme files contain these URLs.
Fixing Mixed Content Errors Caused by Plugins
Some mixed content resources will be loaded by WordPress plugins. Any WordPress plugin following WordPress coding standards will not cause mixed content errors.
We don’t recommend editing WordPress plugin files. Instead, you need to reach out to the plugin author and let them know. If they do not respond or are unable to fix it, then you need to find a suitable alternate.
Note: If for some reason, you’re still encountering mixed content error, then we recommend using the Really Simple SSL plugin temporarily, so your users are not impacted while you fix the issue on a staging website or hire a developer.
Submit Your HTTPS Site to Google Search Console
Search engines like Google consider https and http as two different websites. This means you will need to let Google know that your website has moved to avoid any SEO issues.
To do that, you just need to go to your Google Search Console account and click on ‘Add a Property’ button.
This will bring up a popup where you need to add your website’s new https address.
After that, Google will ask you to verify ownership of your website. There are several ways to do that, select any method and you will instructions to verify your site.
Once your site is verified, Google will start showing your search console reports here.
You also need to make sure that both the https and http versions are added in your Search Console.
This tells Google that you want the https version of your website to be treated as the primary version. Combined with the 301 redirects that you setup earlier, Google will transfer your search rankings to the https version of your website, and you will most likely see improvements in your search rankings.
We know that we did when switched our websites from http to https.
We hope this article helped you add HTTPS and SSL in WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate WordPress security guide with step by step instructions to keep your WordPress site secure.
DNS prefetching is an attempt to resolve domain names before a user tries to follow a link. This is done using the computer’s normal DNS resolution mechanism.
The main reason for rel=dns-prefetch to exist is to speed up the way web pages load when they are using different domains for page resources. This process is often called “DNS prefetching“.
The WordPress link looks like this:
<link rel='dns-prefetch' href='//s.w.org' />
Remove DNS-Prefetch from WordPress site
To remove the DNS-Prefetch link from WordPress wp_head hook is not very hard.
You can add the following code to your functions.php to remove DNS-Prefetch link from your header:
If you are looking to hide the WordPress CMS from hacker bots download the Hide My WP Ghost plugin. The plugin hides the DNS Prefetch link, Comments, Generator Tag and more.
Generator META is usually used to point to the authors of the services used inside a website. Lately, more and more WordPress plugins authors are adding their generator METAs in source-code.
Hide My WP Ghost brings a complex level of security through obscurity and protection against hacker bots.
A reason to change the common paths in WordPress is to be able to hide these paths and prevent script injections into your vulnerable plugins and themes.
Note! The paths will not be physically changed by the plugin, which means all the previous settings will go back to normal in case you decide to deactivate Hide My WP Ghost.
This solution is simple, but it involves editing a core WordPress file.
First, access the root directory of your WordPress installation using the File Manager in your web hosting CPanel or using an sFTP client. Then find a file named wp-config.php and open the file to edit.
Then add the following line in the wp-config file at the beginning of the file:
It was a real challenge to hide paths in CSS files but we managed to find a solution that will not affect the load on the web page.
Since version 4.2, you can use Hide My WP Ghost together with other cache plugins as the plugin verifies and changes all the paths in the caches files.
We’ve tested Hide My WP Ghost with cache plugins like Autoptimize, Breeze, Cache Enabler, Comet Cache, Hummingbird, Hyper Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, Power Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, WP-Rocket, WP Fastest Cache and all these plugins passed the tests successfully.
We’re usually asked if there is a chance to “completely” hide a website from WordPress theme detectors.
It’s a good question, but usually, the real question behind it is if there is a chance to protect the website so that hackers will not be able to break in.
Because the CSS and JS are called statically for a good loading speed of the entire website, Hide My WP Ghost will not change the paths and remove the comments within the website theme style.
If you really want to change the paths and remove the theme comments, you can set Hide My WP Ghost to load it dynamically.
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