Load balancing across certificates and certificate authorities

Systems and methods for server authentication in a content delivery network are provided. Various embodiments include a content delivery network obtaining multiple digital certificates from multiple certificate authorities. When a client attempts to access the content delivery network, the network serves the client a digital certificate and then monitors the authentication of the certificate. If the authentication fails, the content delivery network serves the client another digital certificate that was issued from a different certificate authority. In other embodiments, the content delivery network constantly monitors the function of each certificate authority. The content delivery network constantly pings each certificate authority. If any one of the certificate authorities fails to respond to the pings, the content delivery network will presume the certificate authority is non-operational and will stop using certificates from the non-operational certificate authorities until they resume operation.