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Validate your domain by email

Before it issues a certificate, the certification authority must be sure you control the domain. With email validation it sends a message to an address at that domain, and you confirm from there. It is usually the quickest method when you can read mail for the domain.

How it works

1. When you order, you choose which address the email goes to. The choices are standard addresses at your domain, such as admin@, administrator@, hostmaster@, postmaster@ and webmaster@. We show you the ones available for your domain.
2. The authority emails that address with a link or a code.
3. Open the email and follow the link (or enter the code). Validation is then complete, and the certificate is usually issued within minutes.

On a multi-domain certificate, each name is validated separately and can have its own address.

If the email does not arrive

• Check the address exists. Many domains have no admin@ or webmaster@ mailbox. Create it, or forward it to a mailbox you read.
• Check junk and quarantine. The email comes from the authority, not from us.
• Ask for it again. In your account, open the order and use Resend validation email.
• Pick a different address. On an order that is still waiting, you can change the address from the order page.
• Prefer not to use email? You can switch the order to DNS validation or file validation instead.

More help: domain validation is not completing.

More in this section

• Validate your domain with a DNS record
• Validate your domain with a file on your website

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