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What to do if you have ‘Mixed Content Issues’ in WordPress

William Bacchus
William Bacchus

Published: February 9, 2023

Last updated: September 11, 2023

Table of Contents

This article will guide you with how to fix Mixed Content Issues in WordPress

Is WordPress telling you that you have a ‘Mixed Content Error’ on your website? You may have no idea what this means, how it affects your website, or ways you can fix it. Whilst it may look like there is nothing wrong with your website, Mixed Content Issues can have serious implications on your website, which can result in potential customers or visitors being turned away from your website.

The issue revolves around your website’s security, more specifically your SSL. In this article, we’ll discuss what mixed content issues are, how they impact your site, and how you can fix them.

What are Mixed Content Issues?

In order to understand Mixed Content Issues, you need to have an idea of what an SSL certificate is. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificates are an extra layer of security that encrypt your website. They help to stop hackers and cybercriminals from intercepting data on your website. To be more precise, they protect the data and information transferred from your customers to you. This can include personal information like email addresses, phone numbers, passwords, and even payment information.

Think of SSL certificates like a tube. They incase all the data and information transferred from a website in a layer of protection. Because of this tube, anyone is prevented from intercepting this information and stealing or tampering with it.

A lot of hosting companies include SSL with their packages nowadays. However if yours doesn’t, then it’s vital to get some. If you’re looking for affordable and reliable SSL certificates, then look no further than The Elite Web Co. They offer everything you need to keep your website safe, including Strong SHA-2 and 2048-bit encryption, 24/7 customer support, and a padlock icon in browsers (which we’ll explain the importance of in a second!). This and many more reasons are why you should purchase an SSL certificate with Elite, from just $67.99
$41.38
per year.

Buy SSL certificates with The Elite Web Co.
SSL certificates with The Elite Web Co.

However, if you’re to get more out of your SSL certificate, why not choose Elite’s Website Security plan. Not only does it include an SSL certificate in the Firewall, but it comes with many other great features. These include malware scans, firewall (to prevent hackers from breaking in), and an annual cleanup and remediation of your website. This is the best way to not only help secure your website, but to take it to the next level, giving you and your customers the most secure experience possible whilst on your website! All of this can be made possible from the great, affordable price of

Per site

  • Protects one website.
  • Firewall prevents hackers.
  • SSL certificate included in firewall.
  • Malware scanning.
  • Annual site cleanup and remediation.
$4.99/month
a month!

If you have SSL and it is properly installed on your website, then you will see the padlock icon when you visit your website in a browser. You will also see https:// in the URL. This indicates a secure website.

Secure website:

What a secure website should look like

This icon indicates to visitors that they are on a secure, trustworthy website. They can also click on the padlock to view more information about the security, cookies, or even view the SSL certificate itself.

However, if your SSL certificate is not installed, or properly set up, then you will see something like this:

Unsecure website:

In this instance, clicking on the warning sign will alert visitors that your website is not safe. Because of this, you may scare off potential customers, even if your website doesn’t contain any harmful content.

If your website has Mixed Content Issues, you will be able to find out by clicking on the Not Secure sign. From there, you will see a message saying something along the lines of ‘Connection is not Fully Secure’ (depending on your browser). This means that your website is using an SSL certificate, although some content on your website is not using the HTTPS URL. This may not be across your entire website, it could even be across one or two pages. Let’s take a look at how to identify them.

How to identify Mixed Content Issues:

In order to work out what content is not being delivered through a secure protocol, you’ll want to use the inspect tool. You can do this by right clicking on the page and then pressing ‘inspect’. You will see the mixed content error showing as a warning in the console, as well as details about each mixed content item.

If you are only seeing a single error, you can fix this manually by editing the post, page, or theme file. However, if there are multiple errors displaying, then you’ll need to take another approach to fixing the errors.

How to fix Mixed Content Errors in WordPress

The easiest way to fix mixed content errors is through a plugin. The best plugin we’ve found is called SSL Insecure Content Fixer. If you are unsure on how to install a WordPress plugin, see our quick guide below:

  • Open your WordPress dashboard
  • Navigate to plugins, then press Add New
  • In the search bar, type in SSL Insecure Content Fixer and press Install.
  • Once it has been installed, press Activate so you can use the plugin on your site.

Once you plugin has been activated, head to your settings and then open SSL Insecure Content, from here you will be able to configure the plugin settings.

The best thing about using SSL Insecure Content Fixer is the in-depth settings they have, allowing you to fixed mixed content issues, no matter what circumstance. We will go through the different settings and what they do, in order to help you pick the best one for your site.

These are the options available for fixing your mixed content issues

Simple

The clue’s in the name; the Simple setting is the easiest and quickest way to fix your mixed content issues. This makes it the best option for WordPress beginners. It will automatically fix the mixed content error in WordPress, scanning your website for scripts, stylesheets and all WordPress images in the media library.

Content

If you try to use the Simple method and find it doesn’t work, then the Content option is your plan B. It will go through and scan all things Simple scans. However, it will also check for any errors in your WordPress content and text widgets, providing a slightly more in-depth scan.

Widgets

Building upon Simple and Content, Widgets will add another fix to the mix. Every WordPress widget on your website will be scanned for any errors.

Capture

Capture is a far longer process than the first three, but it is far more detailed. It will capture every element on all of your pages, from header to footer. Then, it replaces each URL with HTTPs. If you use this, affect a slower performance on your website for a short while.

Capture All

Capture All should be your last resort. It will attempt to fix everything, and I mean absolutely everything (including the above), everywhere (including every page on your site), all at once. Since it all happens at the same time, this may result in some unusual behavior on your website, but this should fix itself once your errors have been corrected.

Once you’ve chosen the way you want to attempt to fix your website, scroll down. You now want to look for the HTTPS detection, which is the place you can decide how the plugin will detect the HTTPS content.

Now, choose how to run the https detection

By default, it will have Standard WordPress Function selected. This should be the ideal choice for most websites. Alternatively, you can find other options, which may be useful if you are using a different CDN, web server, or other set ups.

Once you’ve found the setting that best suits you website, go ahead and press save changes. Now it’s time to check back on your website to see if the content has been fixed. If you find it hasn’t, check back to the settings and choose a different option and then try again.

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped you to fix the Mixed Content Issues on your website. You should also have a more developed understanding of the importance of such security features, as well as the vitality of SSL. If you would like to learn more about how important SSL certificates are, click here.

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William Bacchus
William Bacchus
Will joined the Elite team in 2021. He has a background in content writing as well as a keen interest in media journalism. His interests include taijutsu and a immense passion for film and television. He aims to inform as many people as he possibly can about the vast and often confusing nature of web design!

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