Hi, preview website giving certificate error, can’t send it to clients, what to do and how to fix?
Hi @mughal, thanks for reaching out with your question. Preview links are not SSL secured as their are only temporary links you share with your clients while creating the website. In our experience, customer have absolutely no problem with this when we explain that those links are only temporary and that they can click on “Advanced” and then on “Proceed with XXX” to be forwarded to the website.
If you however want to avoid that and also make sure that your customers can give you fast and easy feedback directly on the website, you can send them a link to the customer portal and the feedback tool. With the feedback tool, they will see a full functioning website draft and can leave notes and comments on the site which can be connected to specific elements. Once they have submitted their feedback, you can easily see all to-dos in the website builder - and the best part: when you click on a to-do you will be forwarded to the exact spot your customer has added their feedback.
Here is a helpful article on that: Receive and implement feedback - Sitejet Help
Hope that helps 
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Hi Franzi, i know it’s temporary to share with clients but when i share the link with client they see certificate error, that’s why i contacted you … client can give feedback after domain is pointed / connected but what if we want to share design before connecting domain?
Hi @mughal,
your clients can already use the feedback tool when the website is still in the creation process - so no need for it to be published. Simply move the website to the status “Feedback” and the tool will appear in their customer portal. This is the perfect tool to collect feedback. It also allows your customers to switch between different viewport - which will also be visible in your website builder, so you know exactly where and on what device your customer added the feedback. I highly recommend using the feedback tool when presenting the website drafts to your customers.
- Here is the feedback that was added
- Here the customer can switch between viewports
- Here is a comment connected to the tablet view
- Here is a comment connected to the phone view
- Here is a comment connected to the desktop view
- This highlight indicates to which element the feedback will be added
- Here you can see that your customer can scroll through the website because it is already a full functioning website draft with all the links etc. that can be clicked
This is why we highly recommend presenting the website draft like this.
If you want to use the preview link, you will need to explain that the draft can be visited, when your customers click on Advanced → Proceed to XXX - there is no other way to circumvent the error message.
Hope that helps 
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Hi @Franzi the method you explain is actually not the right way and you are forcing me to use other way, after creating client website it generates a temporary link for example http://1e45d6-5209c.preview.mydomain.com then this must work so i can send it to client and they can check website progress because many client don’t even bother to use portal or understand how to use, so instead of fixing the issue you want me to use the only available option as per your convenient.
Hi @mughal,
thanks for getting back to me. As I already mentioned, preview links will not be SSL secured as they are only temporary links until the website is published.
There are 3 options to work with this:
- Explain to your customers that they should not worry about the information, because the website is safe and they can have a look at the website by clicking Advanced → Proceed to XXX
- Use the customer portal and its feedback tool
- Use the domain, publish the website, set all subpages to “Noindex” so they cannot be found by search engines and password protect the site. At the moment, it’s only possible to set a password per subpage but the community already shared a great way to store the info in the visitor’s browser: Password protect entire site - not just each page
I understand that the feedback tool might not be the right fit for each customer - although we do recommend onboarding your customer to the customer portal as it has much more useful features. I hope you understand that my answers are not about convenience but about explaining what is possible with Sitejet.
Best,
Franzi
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Hi @Franzi i am happy to use option 1. but there is no option after clicking advanced > proceed see attached.
Hi! The Preview link is just a temporary link until you connect your domain.
If you want to give your client the possibility to see your progress and maybe collect feedback, as Franzi has mentioned, Sitjet has an excellent mechanism to collect client feedback.
If you just want to show the website (without collecting feedback), you can simply use the presentation link (keep in mind that this link will expire in 7 days):
CMS Editor → Preview → Share presentation link
Hope this helps!
2 Likes
Why not simply inform your client that the SSL certificate will be working as soon as the domain is connected? But not yet in the development process. This is the totally normal I would say.
@Barbara_Bichler whatever i do, i get SSL error … even my client can not access website on non-secure domain “http” issue seems to be with the domain since i use .app domain and it must require “https” no matter what …
It is, because no SSL is created for preview links as they are “changing” frequently.
whatever i do, i get SSL error … even my client can not access website on non-secure domain “http” issue seems to be with the domain since i use .app domain and it must require “https” no matter what …
As for .dev, also for .app HSTS is already activated by the domain authority, this cannot be turned off. When we contacted the SSL provider, we got the information that this situation might cause trouble.
To get the SSL working, you need to disable it. Even if you are able to update the HSTS preload status of the domain, it will still take time to reach the browsers. Your best move is going to be to put a valid cert for your hostname on that server and kick the plain HTTP to the curb.
It is safe to assume that this is a technical problem, that is not solvable from our side. Out of this experience we do recommend to **not use the whitelabel with .dev and .app TLDs.
@Andre is it possible to disable HSTS manually using cloudflare’s rules specifically for *.preview.mydomain.app domain? this might work but not sure or tried …
I am not sure as this is definitely above my technical payroll - to say it mildly 
Did you check with Cloudflare support already?
I know this might not be what you want, but would you like to think about another TLD maybe?
Didn’t check with cloudflare but i tried and didn’t work 