SSL certificate monitoring

An expired certificate stops an entire site even when every line of code behind it works perfectly. It's a mistake that always starts the same way: someone had it on their calendar three years ago, then the calendar changed, the person changed, and the expiry date just sat there, quiet, waiting for the worst possible moment to make itself known.

How it works

Every time the monitor checks the site, it also checks the certificate's expiry date, its issuer and the validity of the whole chain. There's nothing to configure beyond the URL itself: if the site runs on HTTPS, the check starts on its own. Warnings go out at three thresholds, 30, 14 and 7 days before expiry, one notification per threshold. Renew the certificate and the count resets, so you don't end up with an inbox full of reminders for something you've already fixed.

When you notice it's missing

The photographer and their portfolio

You shoot weddings for a living, and most of your bookings come through the contact form on your site. Whoever built the site three years ago set up the certificate, and nobody's touched it since, you included. If it expires right in May, peak season, the browser flags the site as unsafe just as a bride-to-be was about to reach out. She closes the tab and moves to the next photographer on her list, and you'll never know it happened.

The agency with renewal dates scattered everywhere

Now multiply that across twenty clients, each with a certificate renewing in a different month, sometimes through different providers. Keeping them all straight on a shared calendar works until someone goes on holiday or changes jobs. With automatic warnings, that responsibility stops living in someone's head and becomes a process that doesn't forget, and doesn't take time off.

The quiet advantage

It's not a feature you notice when it's working, and that's exactly the point. On a personal site it's a small safety net running in the background. Across a batch of different clients, with renewal dates nobody would genuinely keep in their head, it's the precise reason that awkward phone call, the one from a client asking why their site says "not secure", stops happening.