Thanks SAQ and Sandro for info; “necessity to have a certificate on the server.”.
Not even aware of this, All I cared about is SSL would shows up in the URL with the padlock etc… That seems to be what Google was requiring. This was mainly done for Google and SEO.
Over my head. I’m not in touch now with the consultant, who was a smart guy, and put a lot of work into this, and did a good job, but now has become a flake. The green padlock is on all web pages, so I’m happy, Google is happy with that , no?
Thanks Oliver, good points, did not know.
I looked at Let’s encrypt last August, again, it was way over my head how to install all that, so I hired him to do the 8 sites I have (one is a main, others are mostly now just forwarding), and there was a ton of complicated redirects etc. many old html pages, force redirect.he did a good job,-- I could have never done it, and and he suggested Cloudflare of which I had never heard of at that point. (Godaddy wanted $$ to do it) He did not mention anything being on the server or not. I think he just stated that Cloudflare is free SSL and great company. And Cloudflare rep wrote me that the certs just roll over every year, no need to renew.
That said, as small fry commercial artist, Do I really need certs on the server? (and then if that is needed who says the site is SSL?)… again, my apologies, I’m total non techie. (I don’t sell anything online)
It was a big panic at the time as it was said that Chrome was going to start a warning that sites are “not secure” to potential clients.
Oddly, I watch, MSNBC, and they still don’t have SSL even now, and they are a million dollar company with lots of enemies.