Learn why you might need and how you can set up root domain HTTPS redirection.
The communication between your customers and your Twice store is secured using SSL encryption. If you connected a root domain to Twice, you might notice the root domain not loading if you try accessing it directly over HTTPS without the www-prefix.
For example, your connected domain mystore.com works when accessed via https://www.mystore.com or https://mystore.com, but not via https://mystore.com.
This happens if your root domain doesn’t have an SSL certificate, which is required to enable an HTTPS connection to your domain. Twice automatically assigns an SSL certificate to your www domain, and redirects all traffic from the root domain to it. This ensures that your site is accessible with or without the www prefix. However, the redirect from the root domain to www is not possible if the root domain is accessed directly using HTTPS, for example, https://mystore.com, because Twice cannot enable the SSL certificate directly to your root domain.
Redirecting traffic from your root domain to the www domain over HTTPS isn’t often necessary. After connecting your root domain to Twice, services such as Google will show only the www-domain in all the search results. The HTTPS redirection might be valuable if you have already used the secured non-www root domain before connecting it to Twice. In that case, Google might still index your pages under that root domain.
Configuring HTTPS redirection from the root domain
If you would like to support the redirect from your root domain to the www domain over HTTPS as well, it needs to be done outside of Twice. Here are a few recommended options:
- Check if your DNS provider allows you to securely redirect the root domain. If so, follow the instructions of the DNS provider to add a redirection from your root domain to your www subdomain.
- Use a third-party service that specializes in secure redirections, such as EasyRedir or Redirect.Pizza. Set up a redirection from your root domain to your www domain.
- Add an SSL certificate on your own server to which your root domain is connected, and configure a redirection from the root domain to your www domain.