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Change Your SSL Certificate Validation Email

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To issue an SSL certificate, the Certificate Authority has to validate that the issue request is legitimate and comes from an authorized owner of the domain. This process is called domain validation.

Email-based domain validation is the most common certificate validation mechanism for domain-validated certificate orders, and the method Sectigo certificates use at DNSimple. If your preferred email is not in the list generated by the Certificate Authority, you can configure an alternative administrative email address to complete validation.

Note

If you are not familiar with the email validation process, read the email validation article before proceeding.

Which Emails Are Accepted

The approval email cannot be an arbitrary email like a customer-provided email or the email in your DNSimple account.

Note

The validation process ensures the certificate is requested by someone with admin rights on the domain. The email must publicly and unequivocally identify the customer as the owner or administrator of the domain listed in the certificate.

The approval email must be one of the following generic administrative addresses at the domain being validated:

  • admin@example.com
  • administrator@example.com
  • hostmaster@example.com
  • postmaster@example.com
  • webmaster@example.com

See email requirements for domain validation for the full list.

Warning

WHOIS email addresses are no longer supported for domain validation. As of June 15, 2025, Certificate Authorities no longer accept email addresses from WHOIS records for domain validation. You must use one of the administrative email addresses listed above. See WHOIS email deprecation for details.

How to Configure an Alternative Validation Email

Steps to set up an administrative email for validation
  1. Review the list of accepted administrative email addresses and choose one that you can configure for your domain.

  2. Set up the chosen email address at your domain. You can either:

    • Create a full mailbox for the address (e.g., admin@example.com) through your email provider.
    • Create an alias or forward that routes to an existing mailbox.
    • If the domain does not have email service and you manage DNS with DNSimple, use email forwarding to create an address like admin@example.com and forward it to your personal email.
  3. Return to the certificate’s validation page in DNSimple and choose the newly configured address under . If the order is already submitted with another address, contact support to change it.
  4. Click to submit the certificate for validation.
  5. Check the inbox for the configured email address and follow the link in the validation email from the Certificate Authority.

Have more questions?

If you have additional questions or need any assistance selecting a validation email, just contact support, and we’ll be happy to help.