My SSL certificate expired and I didn't know. How do I stop it happening again?
Updated 2026-10-17
Short answer: certificates usually renew automatically, so nobody watches them, until renewal quietly fails. Common causes are a DNS change, a moved site, or a validation record that was deleted. Visitors then get a full-page security warning.
How to check it yourself
- Click the padlock on your site in the browser and look at the certificate's expiry date.
- Find out who renews it: your host, Cloudflare, or a tool like Let's Encrypt on your server.
- If renewal is automatic, check its log or dashboard for errors.
- Put the expiry date in a calendar, with a reminder two weeks before.
What Preventionlabs shows
Every report checks that HTTPS works on your site. With a read-only Cloudflare token connected, it also shows the certificate Cloudflare serves, whether it's active, and how many days until it expires. For example, from a real report: "certificate valid until 2027-01-13 (88 days), a Cloudflare-managed certificate, which renews automatically". Uptime is checked every 5 minutes, with an email when the site goes down and when it's back.
Without Cloudflare connected, and for Cloudflare Pages custom domains, the report checks HTTPS works but doesn't show the expiry date.
Price
First report free, no card needed. Then A$50 a month, up to 10 domains.