What it checks
We open a TLS connection to the host and read the certificate's validity dates, issuer and lifetime. Thresholds depend on that lifetime: a certificate issued for 90 days warns at 7 days left and fails at 3, because automated renewal normally happens 30 days early and a 90-day certificate with a week left has already missed a renewal. Longer certificates warn at 30 days and fail at 7.
Why it matters for search engines
An expired certificate makes every browser show a full-page warning instead of the site, and crawlers treat the page as unreachable. Rankings follow within days of a site that cannot be fetched.
Why it matters for AI assistants
The same fetch failure applies to every crawler. An expired certificate means absence, not a degraded result.
How to fix it
Renew the certificate. If it is issued for 90 days, renewal is meant to be automatic; when this check warns, the renewal job has stopped, so fix the job rather than renewing by hand once. For longer certificates, renew before the warning threshold and put the date in a calendar.
Certificate valid for 159 more days, until 2027-03-05 (198-day certificate). Issued by GlobalSign nv-sa.Check one page right now, no account: the free domain and SSL expiry checker.
What quietwatch reports
ok with days remaining, the expiry date, the lifetime and the issuer. warn and fail at the lifetime-aware thresholds above, or fail immediately for an expired certificate. unknown when the TLS connection failed for a reason other than the certificate.
Sources
All twelve checks · Previous: llms.txt · Next: Domain registration