Frequently Asked Questions

Help Center Search

Why is my SSL certificate request not approved yet?

Print this Article
Comment on this Article
Last Updated: September 5, 2007 9:27 AM

As long as you provide the correct company information and documentation, the Certification Authority (CA) should be able to authenticate the information and issue a Deluxe SSL Certificate within 2-4 hours and a SSL Certificate within minutes. However, if the information that you submit is incorrect or incomplete, the authentication process may be delayed. In some cases, the certificate request may be denied.

These are some of the common reasons for a delay or rejection:

Problem: Requesting entity is not the legal registrant of the domain in the request.
Solution: Requestor must be able to prove domain registration ownership. If the requestor is not the legal registrant of the domain, the certificate request will be denied.

Problem: Organization name in request does not match information obtained from Whois database.
Solution: If Whois query fails to verify that the requesting entity is the legal registrant of the domain in the request, the requestor may instead request a Domain Authorization Letter from his/her registrar and subsequently submit the letter to the CA as proof of domain control and domain registration.

Problem: Requesting entity is not using a legally registered business or organization name (corporate authentication process).
Solution: Select the principal (i.e., individual) authorization option. When generating your Certificate Signing Request (CSR), please enter the principal (i.e., individual) name in the "Organization" field, and, optionally, the DBA (doing business as) name in the "Organizational Unit" ("OU") field. The name in the "O" field must be the name of the legal registrant of the domain in the request.

Problem: The CA is unable to verify the identity of the individual requestor (principal authentication process).
Solution: If the CA is unable to verify the requesting individual's entity, the certificate request will be denied.

Problem: A business phone number cannot be found through a third party source.
Solution: If the CA is unable to obtain a trusted third party telephone number for your business, the certificate request will be denied.

Problem: Incorrect information contained in the CSR.
Solution: Use your server software to generate a new CSR, based on corrected information.

Problem: The administrative/registrant/technical contact for the domain fails to approve the certificate request when prompted to do so.
Solution: If the request is not approved by the administrative/registrant/technical contact, it will be denied.