Whether you point a domain to us, or have it hosted yourself, it is imperative to set it up to use SSL.
Without SSL, you will get warnings when people visit your site or click on your redirect links that the link is not secure and to go "back to safety". And, the website and links will plummet in the search engine rankings.
Here's how to get free SSL on your domains:
- Sign up for a free account at CloudFlare.com and add your sites. CloudFlare will look at your DNS settings and copy them over. It will then give you two new Name Server records.
- In a new tab, go to your registrar and change your name servers to point to the ones CloudFlare gave you and save.
- Back in CloudFlare, click on the "Crypto" menu button at the top. Scroll down until you see the option, "Always Use HTTPS", and click the toggle button to turn this option on. It will be instantly saved.
It will probably take a few hours for your domain to point to CloudFlare.
This is the same process I use on all my domains. CloudFlare is huge company that protects the Internet from Denial Of Service attacks, and has over $180MM in funding.
If you already have your domain setup on CloudFlare, just add A records for your domain root and for "www", both pointing to 18.220.149.224, as we have done here for our trkr.ly domain: