Publishing and Maintenance

DNS and HTTPS

Learn to understand DNS changes and secure connections and avoid unsafe publishing assumptions in this beginner-friendly website development lesson.

Learning outcomes

  • Explain how to understand DNS changes and secure connections.
  • Complete the guided practice safely.
  • Check that you can avoid unsafe publishing assumptions.

Before you begin

Work on a practice copy, keep filenames lowercase and hyphenated, and create a backup before changing a live website.

Open official guidance ↗

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Open the relevant project page, file or WordPress screen and confirm you are working on a safe practice copy.
  2. Identify domain, host and certificate responsibilities.
  3. Inspect the result using browser tools or WordPress Preview; do not publish yet.
  4. Check keyboard use, mobile layout, content accuracy, links, images and privacy where applicable.
  5. Confirm that you can avoid unsafe publishing assumptions, then save a clearly named version or backup.
Ian's practical tip: Preview first, test at desktop and mobile sizes, and keep a recoverable copy before publishing.

Practical activity

Identify domain, host and certificate responsibilities. The expected result is to avoid unsafe publishing assumptions.

Completion checklist