The next requirement for Organization Validated SSL is Domain Verification. This is where the Certificate Authority (CA) will attempt to verify that your organization owns the domain in question.
What is Domain Verification?
To satisfy the Domain Verification requirement you need to prove that your organization owns the domain that was registered for.
There are several ways to do this, but the CA is going to start by looking at the WHOIS registry. WHOIS, is an internet database that stores domain registrar information. For this approach to work the record must be publicly available, and the record must display the verified business name with corporate identifier (if applicable) along with the physical address.
If the WHOIS registry is publicly available and checks out against the information you supplied during enrollment, then you’ve cleared this requirement.
If not, there are three other ways to satisfy the Domain Verification requirement.
Alternative Methods
Additional ways to satisfy this requirement include:
- Updating your WHOIS Record – If the details in your WHOIS record are outdated or incorrect, or if a privacy setting is enabled, you can update the record and request that the CA check your WHOIS details again.
- Please note that the CA’s system must be able to automatically pull the email address from the WHOIS. Some WHOIS records cannot be automatically accessed and will not be usable for domain validation.
- Proof of Right Email – The CA can also use email to verify domain ownership. An email can be sent to the address on the WHOIS record, or it can be sent to one of five pre-approved email addresses:
- Admin@yourdomain.com
- Administrator@yourdomain.com
- Webmaster@yourdomain.com
- Hostmaster@yourdomain.com
- Postmaster@yourdomain.com
All of these methods will satisfy the Domain Verification requirement.