WordPress.com is adding HTTPS support for all of its blogs. If you have a custom domain or a blog under the wordpress.com domain name (like bestcrabrestaurantsinportland.wordpress.com), you’re good to go.
While many social services like Facebook and Twitter have supported HTTPS for a while now, WordPress.com was still lagging behind for custom domain names.
Since 2014, WordPress.com subdomains have supported HTTPS, but not the others. But this isn’t as easy as flipping a switch for custom domain names as you need certificates for all domain names.
Thanks to the Let’s Encrypt project, it has become much cheaper and easier to implement HTTPS across the web. WordPress.com is taking advantage of this initiative for its websites. Each website now has an SSL certificate and will display a green lock in your address back.
As a nice side effect, Google tends to favor websites that support HTTPS over HTTP-only website. So your WordPress.com website should rank higher in Google search results.
I’m sure you all have a burning question. What do I need to do to activate HTTPS? In an Oprah-like moment, WordPress.com is activating HTTPS on all websites without having to do anything. You get an SSL certificate! Everyone gets an SSL certificate!
Romain Dillet was a Senior Reporter at TechCrunch until April 2025. He has written over 3,500 articles on technology and tech startups and has established himself as an influential voice on the European tech scene. He has a deep background in startups, AI, fintech, privacy, security, blockchain, mobile, social and media. With thirteen years of experience at TechCrunch, he’s one of the familiar faces of the tech publication that obsessively covers Silicon Valley and the tech industry — his career started at TechCrunch when he was 21. Based in Paris, many people in the tech ecosystem consider him as the most knowledgeable tech journalist in town. Romain likes to spot important startups before anyone else. He was the first person to cover Revolut, Alan and N26. He has written scoops on large acquisitions from Apple, Microsoft and Snap. When he’s not writing, Romain is also a developer — he understands how the tech behind the tech works. He also has a deep historical knowledge of the computer industry for the past 50 years. He knows how to connect the dots between innovations and the effect on the fabric of our society. Romain graduated from Emlyon Business School, a leading French business school specialized in entrepreneurship. He has helped several non-profit organizations, such as StartHer, an organization that promotes education and empowerment of women in technology, and Techfugees, an organization that empowers displaced people with technology.