WordPress recently announced it will be rolling out free HTTPS-encryption for all websites hosted on its server.
The company’s latest efforts to offer higher security will see all new sites become automatically HTTPS-enabled.
In addition, WordPress will also be adding HTTPS to existing WordPress websites, which site owners can track on their custom domains.
Once a site is HTTPS-enabled, owners will see green lock icon appear in their browser’s address bar, with all plaintext HTTP requests being instantly redirected to their encrypted counterpart.
In a blog post announcing the news, WordPress said: “WordPress.com has supported encryption for sites using WordPress.com subdomains (like https://barry.wordpress.com/) since 2014.
“Our latest efforts now expand encryption to the million-plus custom domains (like automattic.com) hosted on WordPress.com.
“The Let’s Encrypt project gave us an efficient and automated way to provide SSL certificates for a large number of domains.
“We launched the first batch of certificates in January 2016 and immediately started working with Let’s Encrypt to make the process smoother for our massive and growing list of domains.”
Not only will this new level of encryption ensure greater safety for the sites hosted on WordPress, the company said that it will also improve websites’ performance on Google.
According to Google, HTTPS is used as a ranking signal in search results meaning that HTTPS-enabled sites will be ranked above their plaintext equivalents.
Find out more here.