Is your TLS certificate healthy?
An expired or wrong-host certificate blocks browsers and crawlers alike, and it is invisible until it bites. This opens a real TLS connection and reads the certificate: issuer, expiry, host coverage and chain validity.
Opens a real TLS connection to the host from the server. Nothing is stored.
How this check works
Shipwork connects to the host on 443, reads the certificate, and reports whether it covers the hostname, how many days until it expires, the negotiated protocol and cipher, and whether the chain validated. It flags an expired, soon-to-expire or wrong-host certificate.
Questions
- How often do certificates expire?
- Modern certificates are valid for a year or less, and free ones renew every 90 days. An unattended renewal failing is the usual cause of an outage.
- What is host coverage?
- The certificate must list the exact hostname you serve, or a wildcard that matches it. A certificate for example.com does not cover www.example.com unless it says so.
- Does TLS affect SEO?
- HTTPS is a confirmed light ranking signal, and a certificate error blocks crawlers entirely, which is far worse.