A number of mechanisms have been proposed for generating and disseminating information on the status of certificates. Their operation is different, if not contradicting sometimes, and advantages and disadvantages depend on the requirements of the underlying PKI. PKI designers and implementors should perform a small scale study before deploying such a mechanism in a specific PKI, in order to select the most suitable mechanism for their environment. This paper presents a method for categorising Certificate Status Information mechanisms, depending on their elementary functionality. This taxonomy can be used as a guide for selecting CSI mechanisms to be used in large-scale PKI deployment efforts.