A status page reports current service health and incidents. A trust page explains your standing security and compliance practices. Mixing them confuses both audiences, so keep each focused and link between them.
Different questions, different readers
A status page answers "is it down right now?" for customers and support staff. A trust page answers "can we rely on this vendor?" for reviewers and buyers. One is real time. The other is mostly stable and dated.
What belongs on the status page
- Current state of each major component.
- Active incidents with timestamped updates.
- Scheduled maintenance.
- Past incidents for a stated period.
- A way to subscribe to updates by email or feed.
Keep the language factual. State what is affected, what you are doing and when the next update will come. Avoid speculation about cause until it is confirmed.
What belongs on the trust page
- Security overview and data handling.
- Attestations and how to request reports.
- Subprocessors.
- Vulnerability disclosure contact.
- Policies summary and standard questionnaire response.
See what to publish on a trust page.
What belongs on neither
Detailed post mortems with internal hostnames, unconfirmed root causes, and uptime figures you do not measure. If you publish an availability number, say how it is calculated and over what period.
How they connect
Link the status page from the trust page, since reviewers ask about availability and incident history. Link the trust page from the status page footer, so a customer worried by an incident can find your incident notification commitments.
Post incident notes
After a significant incident, publish a short summary on the status page: what happened, impact, fix and what changes. Keep the version for customers separate from your internal review, which names people and systems in detail. See answering breach notification questions.
Hosting matters
Do not host your status page on the same infrastructure as the service. If it goes down, the status page should not. Many teams use a separate provider or region for this reason.
Quick check
Should the trust page show uptime?
Only with a stated method and period. Otherwise link to the status page history and let customers judge.
Who updates the status page during an incident?
Assign a communications role in your incident process so engineers can focus on the fix.
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
