When placing an order for a SSL certificate it’s good to have all of your ducks in a row. You’ll need several pieces of information about your business and your site to place your order and then have this information validated by the Certificate Authority (CA).
Here’s the basic information you’ll need:
- email address (this is where the validation email will be sent to approve authorization)
- Address street, City, State, Zip Code
- A Certificate Signing Request (CSR) from your hosting account or server
Depending on the certificate you’ve ordered, and the CA, there will be varying levels of scrutiny you’ll undergo before your certificate can be issued. This also means some certs will take longer than others to issue. For example:
- DigiCert certs orders will generally mean you need to have your website contact information in alignment with what appears in public records through agencies such and Dun and Bradstreet.
- More budget conscience certificates generally involve less scrutiny, but will still require you to do things like place a verification file on your site for your site to be validated.
It’s best to have this information all together before you place your order to prevent you from waiting an unnecessarily long time before your cert is issued.