In January of 2011, Facebook allowed the option for their users to be able to log in and browse Facebook over a secure (HTTPS) connection. What this means is that if a user is out perusing Facebook at the local coffee shot on their laptop or tablet, they will be on a secure connection without the fear of someone being able to hack in to their account and steal personal information. According to an announcement by Facebook in April of this year, nearly 10 million people were already utilizing this option. Those numbers are indeed expected to rise exponentially in the coming months as more people are made aware of this option.
So what does this mean to you, as a small business owner, if you have a Facebook Fan Page with any custom tabs/pages? Well, it means PLENTY! First of all, any of your iframe-based pages (which are hosted someplace OTHER than Facebook) that are NOT hosted on a server with an SSL certificate and cannot be accessed with HTTPS will not be available to your viewers who have opted for the secure browsing option. Sounds pretty dreadful, doesn’t it? Well, never fear – it’s a bit of a minor nuisance to the developer – but on a scale of major catastrophe to yawn, this is merely a speed bump. 
First things first. You will need to purchase an SSL Certificate if your web hosting server does not already have one. We were able to do so through our server for about $80 for one year (yes, it’s a yearly thing…) Once this is in place, you will have the ability to call your pages with the HTTPS prefix rather than the standard HTTP. But it doesn’t end there.
Next, you will need to go in to the code for any iframe pages you have, and do a global replace of all of your hyperlinks to change any that use HTTP to HTTPS – and if they link to an outside site, you will need to ensure that site also has SSL. If it doesn’t, you can either approach the site owner about it, or opt to omit that link from your page. Sad, but true – because non secure elements will not work properly in a secure browsing environment.
Lastly, you will need to go in to your Developer account, find each of your apps for the iframe pages/tabs in question, and click on “edit. Find the tab that says “Facebook Integration” and click on it. Then you will need to add secure URL’s to the “Secure Canvas URL” section and the “Secure Tab URL” section.
For example…
If your Canvas URL is:
http://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/
Then your Secure Canvas URL would be:
https://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/
Same with the Secure Tab URL – just add the https to the beginning of the Tab URL and you’ve got it!
Then upload your newly corrected files to your web server and test over a secure connection – you should have everything working properly!
If you have any problems, just give us a call – we specialize in all things Social Media and Web Design, so we can help!
