Our SSL certificate or domain expired and the website went down.
Renew the domain at your registrar or reissue the certificate first, then check DNS and the certificate installed on every server. To prevent a repeat, turn on registrar auto-renew and automate certificates with ACME (for example Let's Encrypt with certbot), and keep an owned reminder with escalation for everything that cannot be automated.
Last updated · ExpiryEdge editorial team
Quick answer
If your domain expired, renew it at your registrar immediately; most registries allow recovery for a period after expiry, though the length and fees vary. If your SSL certificate expired, reissue and install it, then confirm with a browser or SSL checker. To prevent it, enable registrar auto-renew and ACME certificate automation, and track anything manual with reminders at 90, 30 and 7 days.
What to do in the next 48 hours
1. Work out which one actually expired
A browser warning about a certificate means the SSL/TLS certificate expired. A site that does not resolve, shows a registrar parking page, or stops receiving email usually means the domain expired. Check the domain's expiry with a WHOIS or RDAP lookup and the certificate's expiry in the browser's certificate details.
2. If the domain expired: renew at the registrar now
Log in to the registrar account and renew. Most registries have a grace or redemption period after expiry, but how long it lasts, what it costs to restore, and when the domain can be released to someone else all vary by registry and registrar. If you cannot log in, contact the registrar's support straight away with proof of ownership.
3. If the certificate expired: reissue and install it
For ACME-managed certificates, run the renewal manually (for example certbot renew) and check why the automatic job failed. For paid certificates, renew with the certificate authority, complete validation, and install the new certificate and intermediate chain on every server, load balancer and CDN that serves the domain.
4. Check DNS, email and everything that depends on the name
After a domain renewal, confirm that nameservers and DNS records were not changed while it was expired, and allow time for DNS to update. Test the website, email delivery, APIs and any subdomains. Run an SSL checker to confirm the full certificate chain is valid.
5. Find the next one before it expires
List every domain and certificate you or your clients own, with expiry dates, registrar or certificate authority, payment method and owner. Turn on auto-renew wherever you can, and check that the card on file has not expired.
Websites go down from expired names and certificates for a few reasons
Auto-renew failed silently
Auto-renew was on, but the card on file had expired or was cancelled. The registrar's warning emails went to an address nobody reads.
The domain was on someone's personal account
A founder, freelancer or former employee registered the domain with their own account and card. When they left, so did the renewal notices.
A manual certificate nobody remembered
Most sites are on automated certificates, but one paid certificate on a load balancer, appliance or legacy server was installed by hand and forgotten.
Automation broke and nobody was told
A DNS change, firewall rule or server move stopped the ACME renewal job. It failed quietly until the certificate expired.
Automate what you can, own the reminder for the rest
ExpiryEdge does not scan or monitor certificates automatically. You enter each expiry date, import them from a spreadsheet, or send them in via the API or Zapier. It then makes sure a named person is reminded and escalated.
Turn on registrar auto-renew first
Enable auto-renew on every domain, keep a current company card on file, and move registrar accounts and contact emails to shared company addresses.
Automate certificates with ACME
Use ACME clients such as certbot with Let's Encrypt, or your host's or CDN's managed certificates. Public certificate lifetimes are getting shorter, which makes manual renewal harder each year.
Track every domain and certificate as a dated record
Record domains, paid certificates, software licences and warranties in ExpiryEdge with the expiry date, registrar or vendor, payment method, owner and client.
Reminders to Slack, Teams, email or SMS
Reminders at 90, 30 and 7 days, or your own cadence, go to the owner on email, SMS, WhatsApp, Slack or Microsoft Teams, with escalation to a senior owner if the date passes.
Group by client for MSPs
Organise records by client or team, give each technician their own list, and give account managers a roll-up of everything expiring across all clients.
Push dates in from your own tools
Use the API or Zapier to create or update records from your monitoring, PSA or asset systems, so the reminder layer stays in sync with what you already track.
Keep one register with a record per item - each domain, certificate, software licence and hardware warranty - with the expiry date, client, vendor, payment method and a named technician as owner. Group records by client so each account has its own view. ExpiryEdge works this way for MSPs: you enter or import the dates (or send them in via the API), and reminders go to the owner by email, Slack, Teams or SMS. It does not scan certificates, so pair it with automation and monitoring for anything ACME can renew.
Record every subscription with its renewal date, the cancellation notice period, the seat count and the cost, and set a reminder for the notice deadline rather than the renewal date - that is the last day you can cancel or reduce seats. Assign a budget owner to each subscription who must confirm it is still needed. Many SaaS vendors allow you to switch off auto-renew in the billing settings, which forces a decision. ExpiryEdge can send the review reminder 30 to 60 days before the notice deadline.
For each licence, record the product, vendor, renewal date, notice period, number of seats bought, cost and owner, and attach the order or contract. Before each renewal, compare seats bought with seats actually assigned in the vendor's admin console, and adjust. ExpiryEdge tracks the dates, documents and owners and sends reminders before renewal, but it does not read seat usage from your software - that check still happens in each vendor's console or a SaaS management tool.
Record each device or batch of devices with its serial number, purchase date, warranty end date, vendor and location, and attach the invoice. Many vendors let you look up warranty status by serial number, which is useful for filling in gaps. Set a reminder 60 to 90 days before warranty end so there is time to extend cover or plan replacement. Bulk import from your asset list or purchase records saves entering devices one by one.
Yes. ExpiryEdge sends reminders to Slack and Microsoft Teams as well as email, SMS and WhatsApp, at the intervals you set, for example 30, 14 and 7 days before a certificate's expiry date. You enter the expiry date, import it, or send it in via the API - ExpiryEdge does not scan certificates itself. If you want automatic detection of expiring certificates on live servers, use a certificate monitoring tool and send its results into ExpiryEdge or straight to your chat channel.
Yes, wherever you can - registrar auto-renew for domains and ACME automation for certificates are the most reliable fixes. But auto-renew fails when the card on file expires, the account belongs to someone who left, or an automated job breaks after a server change. Keep a reminder on every item anyway, owned by a named person, with a check a few weeks before expiry that the renewal actually went through. That covers the cases automation cannot.
It depends on the domain extension and the registrar. Many registries have a grace period after expiry where you can renew normally, followed by a redemption period where restoring is possible but costs more. After that, the domain can be released and registered by anyone. The exact timings and fees differ between registries and registrars, so contact your registrar immediately and ask what applies to your domain.
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