SSL certificates that are issued instantly without organisation verification are referred to as Domain Validated. These certificates are generally issued within 10 minutes. Some certificates are flagged for a manual validation which can take longer.
Where should I use a Domain Validated Certificate?
DV certificates are good for situations where all you need is encryption. This could be on test or development environment, API endpoint or server to server communication.
Where should I NOT use a Domain Validated Certificate?
Because DV certificates are very easy to obtain you have to be careful when connecting to DV secured websites that you are certain of the site identity. The certificate will not contain any company identity information. Therefore we do not recommend DV certificates for e-commerce, login pages, webmail logins or any site dealing with financial or personal data. Instead take a look at Organisation and Extended Validation certificates.
What do I have to do to get a Domain Validated Certificate?
To receive a Domain validated SSL certificate you must be able to prove ownership. We provide three ways to achieve this:
- Email Authentication
You must receive an email to a predefined address and click the link. - File Based Authentication
You must upload a file to your web server with a specific name and contents. - DNS Based Authentication
You create a CNAME record with a particular character string supplied during order.
