As soon as your certificate has been ordered, there are 3 ways of verifying your domain(s). The standard (and quickest) way of verifying one or more domains is by making use of Email Verification. Other methods include DNS (CNAME) verification or HTTP File Upload.
👇 Click on each method to learn more:
To verify your domains via email, first, select one of the available verification email addresses and make sure you have access to the associated email inbox. Typically, you will be able to choose between the following types of email addresses for your specific domain:
- admin@domain.com
- administrator@domain.com
- hostmaster@domain.com
- postmaster@domain.com
- webmaster@domain.com
After making your selection and clicking "Next Step", an email carrying a domain verification code as well as a link to a separate domain verification page will be sent to the selected email address.
To finalize the verification of your domain, simply grab your domain verification key, click the "Go To Verification Page" button to get to the verification page and submit your domain verification key.
Troubleshooting
👉 Please check our Troubleshooting Guide here
Another way of verifying one or multiple domains is DNS (CNAME) Verification. When navigating to the domain verification page and choosing DNS (CNAME) as your verification method, you will receive a unique CNAME record consisting of two parts:
- Name: This is the name-part of your CNAME record.
- Value: This is the value-part your CNAME record is pointing to.
- TTL: This is your TTL (Time-To-Live) value. Set it to 3600 or lower.
Please check if you have added the correct Name record:
For example, your Name record in ZeroSSL is _D5856C5EEC87E5505EF3F53E95B414EB.domain.com, please enter only_D5856C5EEC87E5505EF3F53E95B414EB without the domain part as most DNS providers filter this part out automatically.
Depending on where your domain's DNS records are managed, here are some helpful resources about how to add CNAME records for some of the most popular domain registrar or DNS management services:
- Google Domains
- Add CNAME in Google Domains
- GoDaddy
- Add CNAME in GoDaddy
- Cloudflare
- Add CNAME in Cloudflare
- ⚠️ Proxy status must be DNS only
- Name.com
- Add CNAME in Name.com
- Namecheap
- Add CNAME in Namecheap
CNAME not verifying?
Depending on your DNS provider it can take up to 48 hours for DNS changes to be effective!
Troubleshooting
👉 Please check our Troubleshooting Guide here
The third and final method of verifying one or multiple domains is HTTP File Upload Verification. When navigating to the domain verification page and choosing HTTP File Upload as your verification method, you will be asked to download a unique verification file (Format: .txt) and upload it to a specific directory on your web server.
Have I verified my domains correctly?
As soon as you have completed your domain verification process, your SSL certificate's status will change to "Pending Validation" up until our system has successfully issued your certificate. Please note that issuance may take up to a few minutes.
For every verification method, you can always check the current verification status by navigating to the certificates list, choosing "Pending Validation", and clicking "Status" next to the certificate in question.
Troubleshooting
👉 Please check our Troubleshooting Guide here
Troubles during verification?
Before contacting us please try the following three things:
- Please try also at least one of the other two remaining methods.
- Visit this Troubleshooting article for further help!!
- Please check for an ongoing service incident.