Defaults.Exposed › Methodology › v7 registry › Certificate valid
Certificate valid
Methodology v7 · canonical ID cert-valid · TLS & Certificates · scored · census as of July 28, 2026
A trusted, correctly-issued certificate; an invalid one throws scary browser warnings.
Definition
| Canonical ID | cert-valid |
|---|---|
| Category | TLS & Certificates |
| Grade impact | Scored — counts toward the grade |
| Pass | The presented certificate chain validates to a trusted root, matches the hostname, and is within its validity period. |
| Fail | The certificate is self-signed, expired, name-mismatched, or otherwise fails validation. |
| Example (passing) | CN=example.com, issued by a publicly trusted CA, chain validates |
No-data rule: when this check couldn't be determined for a domain (timeout, SERVFAIL, redacted
source) it returns N/A and is excluded from that domain's scoring denominator — "couldn't determine"
is never counted as a failure. "Determined absent" is a real fail.
Prevalence across the census
91.2% of HTTPS-serving domains present a valid, trusted certificate (191,943,322 of 210,439,319, as of July 28, 2026).
Census denominator: 275,666,275 graded domains; this check is measured against the HTTPS-serving subset (210,439,319). Aggregates only — never an individual domain's result.
Fix it
Plain-English impact, cost of ignoring it, and step-by-step remediation: defaults.exposed/en/fix/certificate
Cite this check
Defaults.Exposed, "Certificate valid (cert-valid)", Grading Methodology v7 (census as of July 28, 2026). https://defaults.exposed/methodology/v7/cert-valid
Permalink: https://defaults.exposed/methodology/v7/cert-valid ·
All 34 checks: v7 registry ·
Machine-readable: checks.json ·
Licence: open data