Difference between bare domain/www in the CSR

When a new SSL certificate is activated, quite often a question arises: “How to put the domain in the CSR? With or without www?”. Now we will clarify this for you.

Even if the www.example.com subdomain is considered just a copy of the bare domain website, it is still a different name for SSL certificates. Some certificates do include it as a free Subject Alternative Name, some of them do not. This feature depends on the certificate type, and the rules of the Authority this certificate is issued by. Let us look through this question in a detailed way.

Single-domain certificates

Single-domain Comodo (now Sectigo) certificates will secure both - your bare domain and its www version - by default. For these certificates, it does not matter whether you specify the Common Name with or without www in your CSR.

This feature is completely different for Comodo (now Sectigo) Multi-domain certificates. Every domain or subdomain in such a certificate will go to a separate Subject Alternative Name slot. So, if you need to secure both, the bare and www versions of your domains, it will be necessary to fill them in separately - one as a Common Name and one as a SAN - like on the screenshot below:

diff1

There is no difference at all which of them will go to the Common name in the CSR, and which will be specified as Domain 2 during activation.

Wildcard certificates

The feature of WildCard SSLs is multiple subdomains security. If the Common Name in a Wildcard certificate is specified as *.www.example.com, no other first-level subdomains will be secured (e.g. sub1.example.com, sub2.example.com etc.). You will only be able to secure the second-level subdomains (sub1.www.example.com, sub2.www.example.com and so on).

So, in these certs, the common name should be used without www, unless it is done intentionally and you need to secure sub1.www.example.com, sub2.www.example.com etc.

Below you can find a table with all the certificates we offer and have a quick check whether there is a difference in what Common Name to use. If the answer is “Yes”, find the detailed description in the above article.

Single domain

SSL certificate name

Common name

Are both www

and non-www covered?

PositiveSSL

EssentialSSL

InstantSSL

InstantSSL Pro

PremiumSSL

Comodo EV SSL

www.example.com

or

example.com



www.sub.example.com

or

Yes





Yes

Wildcard

SSL certificate name

Common name

“www” covered

by the asterisk (“*”)

Bare domain coverage

(example.com)

PositiveSSL Wildcard

EssentialSSL Wildcard

PremiumSSL Wildcard

*.example.com



*.sub.example.com

Yes



Yes

Yes



No

Multi-Domain

SSL certificate name

Primary domain

Are both www

and non-www covered?

Additional domain (SAN)

Are both www

and non-www covered?

PositiveSSL Multi-Domain

Multi-Domain SSL

Unified Communications

EV Multi-Domain SSL

www.example.com

or

example.com


www.sub.example.com

or

sub.example.com

No




No

www.example.com

or

example.com


www.sub.example.com

or

sub.example.com

No






No

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