Companies Using GlobalSign

I run the crawler that reads the DNS of every domain we visit, and TXT records are where certificate authorities leave their fingerprints. A domain counts here when one of its TXT records contains _globalsign-domain-verification. Our October 2026 crawl puts that at 165,576 domains, 102,387 matched to a company, 1st in SSL/TLS Certificates. Because a validation record proves something happened once, I tested what it means today. On 15 October 2026 I took a random one-in-160 sample of the clean set, 1,004 domains, re-read their DNS and opened a TLS connection to each homepage.

What the record proves

GlobalSign's DNS verification guide covers DomainSSL (DV) and AlphaSSL orders, SANs added to CloudSSL certificates, OV and EV domains added to a managed SSL account, and self-validation for partner and retail OV and EV certificates. Each order gets a code that expires 30 days after the order. The CA/Browser Forum's Baseline Requirements now let a CA reuse a domain validation for at most 200 days. The record is only needed for a few days, then, and it outlives that by years.

Sales signal: treat the list as companies that bought a GlobalSign certificate at some point, not as current subscribers.

How much of it is current

980 of the 1,004 sampled domains still carried the record. 979 answered a TLS handshake, and 354 (36.16%) served a certificate issued by GlobalSign. Let's Encrypt served 396 (40.45%), Google Trust Services 96 and GoDaddy 36. Applied to the 164,362 domains in our clean set, 36.16% is roughly 59,000 domains with a GlobalSign certificate on the homepage, give or take three points. A smaller random draw of 50 gave 17 of 49, the same picture.

"Two in five of the domains that once validated with GlobalSign now serve Let's Encrypt, and almost all of them kept the GlobalSign record." - David Thomson, CTO at TechnologyChecker.io

The homepage test is a floor for current use, because a company can keep GlobalSign on a mail server or a login subdomain while its homepage moves to a CDN certificate. The record count is the ceiling. Current use sits somewhere between 36% and 98%. I'd plan on the lower end.

Sales signal: the 60%-plus of domains that kept the record but moved CA have changed CA once already. That makes them the first list a competing CA should work.

What they buy

Of the 354 live GlobalSign certificates, 210 came from AlphaSSL issuing CAs, GlobalSign's budget DV brand, 93 from GlobalSign's own DV CAs, 48 from OV CAs and only 3 from EV. Their validity periods split almost evenly between about 390 days and about 190 days, so about half the base has renewed since the 200-day cap took effect on 15 March 2026. GlobalSign's shop listed DV at $249 a year, OV at $349 and EV at $599 on 15 October 2026, each year sold as two 199-day certificates.

Sales signal: this is a DV-heavy base. Pitches about managed renewal and automation for short-lived certificates will land better than EV.

Portfolios and platforms

The owners with the most domains are brand groups with a country site per market. BMW Group has 234 (96 bmw.*, 76 mini.* and 57 bmw-motorrad.* domains among them), and the next three brand groups have 50, 45 and 36. Together that's 365 domains, 0.22% of the count, so no single owner skews the page. They differ today: the BMW and MINI homepages I checked served Let's Encrypt, one of the other groups had moved to Google Trust Services, and the other two still served GlobalSign OV certificates.

One platform does put its customers here. Imperva's cloud WAF obtains GlobalSign certificates for the sites behind it: 20 sampled domains resolved to Imperva, 16 of them served GlobalSign certificates, and 13 of those were shared certificates named imperva.com. Our records show 3,786 GlobalSign domains (2.30%) running Imperva, too few to change the picture but worth knowing before you call one of them about certificates. The verification codes themselves rarely repeat: 7 codes were shared, across 16 domains.

"BMW validated 234 domains with GlobalSign. The five BMW Group homepages I checked now serve Let's Encrypt." - David Thomson, CTO at TechnologyChecker.io

Sales signal: for the Imperva slice, the decision sits with Imperva, not the site owner.

Who and where

40.84% of matched companies have 1 to 10 staff and 82.29% have 200 or fewer. The United States leads with 23,598 matched companies and Brazil follows with 14,744, ahead of the UK (6,072) and Germany (5,647). Brazil is also where GlobalSign holds on best: 58 of the 107 Brazilian domains that answered served its certificate, well above the 36.16% average. Russia shows up through Yandex.Metrika (11.29% of the base), 1C-Bitrix (3.81%) and REG.RU hosting (1.56%).

Sales signal: Brazil is the market where GlobalSign is still the incumbent, and the one where a competing CA has the most to displace.

Churn and overlap

Records rarely disappear. 9,357 domains dropped it since we began tracking on 16 March 2026, about 5.7% of the count, and a recount on 15 October found 835 of the dropped domains still carrying it on another hostname. Overlap with other TXT-validated CAs is small: 404 domains carry SwissSign records as well, 188 QuoVadis and 77 Actalis. Seen from the other side, 65 of the 1,783 domains in our IdenTrust clean set also carry a GlobalSign record. We publish no switching table, because leaving a CA rarely removes its record.

Sales signal: a dropped record is not a reliable churn trigger. The live certificate is.

Key takeaways

1. 165,576 domains validated with GlobalSign; about 36% of a random sample still serve its certificate.

2. Let's Encrypt has taken more of these homepages (40.45%) than GlobalSign kept.

3. AlphaSSL and DV make up 303 of 354 live GlobalSign certificates.

4. Brazil is the strongest market, by count and by retention.

5. Portfolios (BMW Group and three other brand groups) are 0.22% of the count; Imperva-fronted sites are 2.30%.

How to use this list

Start with the live certificate, not the record. Filter by country and size on TechnologyChecker.io, then check which domains still serve GlobalSign. Our certificate authority market share report shows the same shift towards free certificates from the issuance side. The full list of 165,576 domains, with 102,387 matched companies, is on TechnologyChecker.io.