Force HTTPS and choose www or not: a small change that helps SEO

To a search engine, http://pepploweb.com, https://pepploweb.com and https://www.pepploweb.com can look like three different sites with the same content. Links pointing to your directory get split between them, and the wrong version may appear in results. A canonical address fixes that.

What WAGroups already does

Every page prints a canonical tag pointing to its preferred address, and the sitemap lists one version of each page. That tells search engines what you prefer. Redirects make it a rule: anyone who arrives on another version is moved to the right one.

Turning it on

1. Install SSL first. Open your site with https:// and make sure there is no warning, for both the www and non-www versions.
2. Open Security and access › Hardening in WAGroups.
3. Switch on Force HTTPS.
4. Choose the canonical domain: "Always add www." or "Always remove www.". Pick whichever you already use in your site address and on social profiles.
5. Update the site address under General settings › Site identity to match.

Safe by design

• Redirects are permanent (301) for page visits and keep the method (308) for form submissions, so nothing breaks mid-form.
• They never apply to localhost, .test or .local addresses or to IP addresses, so a staging copy keeps working.
• Behind a CDN or proxy, WAGroups reads the X-Forwarded-Proto header to avoid redirect loops.

After switching

In Google Search Console, add the canonical version as your property and submit /sitemap.xml again. Old links will keep working — they now land on the right address and pass their value to it.