Articles
The warning page your customer sees when a certificate runs out
· 2 min read · Remus Baltatu
From February 2027, website security certificates expire much sooner. A hand-renewed one can lapse, and visitors see a warning instead of your site.
A customer taps the link to your website to order a birthday cake. Instead of your menu, her phone shows a full-page warning: "Your connection is not private." She isn't sure what it means, but it sounds risky. She goes back and taps the next business.
Your website is fine. Its certificate just ran out.
What is changing
Every website that starts with https has a security certificate, a small file that proves the site is really yours. Certificates expire, and from next year they expire sooner. On February 10, 2027, Let's Encrypt, a free provider many web hosts use, plans to shorten its standard certificates from 90 days to 64 days. From March 15, 2027, industry rules limit any public website certificate to 100 days, down from 200 days today. The limit is planned to get shorter again in later years.
Most hosts renew certificates automatically, and then nothing changes for you. The risk is a certificate someone renews by hand: one bought separately and installed once a year, or one on an older server, a booking page or a second web address.
Why owners miss it
You rarely open your own site the way a stranger does. When a certificate lapses, nothing on your side sends an alert unless someone set one up. The customer sees the warning, and she almost never calls to tell you.
A five-minute check
- On a computer, open your website in Chrome. Click the icon to the left of the address, then "Connection is secure," then "Certificate is valid." Write down the expiry date.
- Do the same for every address customers use: with and without www, your booking or ordering page, and any second domain.
- Ask whoever runs your website or hosting whether all of these renew automatically, and who gets the alert if a renewal fails.
- If any certificate is renewed by hand, ask them to switch it to automatic renewal before February.
- Put a reminder in your calendar to check the dates again in late March.
A customer who reaches your page, not a warning, gets to judge you on what you offer.
Sources: Let's Encrypt, "Decreasing Certificate Lifetimes to 45 Days" (December 2025); CA/Browser Forum Ballot SC-081 (April 2025).
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