How To Find Domain Registration Information

Have you ever wanted to know who owns or hosts a specific domain name?  Or maybe you want to look up what information is viewable by the public about your domain?  There is a quick and easy way to check on the status and registration information of any domain name whether owned or available for registration.  What you need to do is find a website that offers what’s called a WHOIS lookup.  WHOIS is not an acronym and is pronounced “who is”.  A WHOIS lookup is basically a query or request for information on a given domain.  Now this request can be done on a wide variety of websites for free.  Probably the most popular is Whois.net.  You can find a bunch of other sites by just typing in the keyword “whois”  in your favorite search engine.  I guarantee you will have a long list to choose from.

Once you find a WHOIS site,  just type in the domain you want learn more information about.  Here is a short list of things that generally can be found out about a domain name from doing a WHOIS look up:

• who registered the domain
• when was it registered
• when will it expire
• when it was the domain information last updated
• where it is being hosted
• contact information of the owner
• if the domain is registered yet

This tools is very handy for people to use if they want to check on the status of their own domain names to make sure the information the domain registrar has on record is the most current and accurate.  Also, another very useful use of a WHOIS lookup is to make sure that it is still in your possession and not transferred to another (however rare it is, it still does happen).  As I mentioned this is just a short list…a list the most basic information about the domain.  Some websites will provide even more information.  You might find a site that will show you a screenshot of the homepage of the domain or possibly more technical information like the ip address used by the hosting server.  Most people won’t need information like this but it can come in handy for a select few.

What’s great about doing a WHOIS lookup is that it is completely free.  If you ever find a website that requires you to pay some sort of fee, just say no thank you and move on to another site.  This is public information and shouldn’t be charged for when so many other sites are providing this service for free.

So if you ever wondered about another person’s domain or what information is made public about your domain, doing a WHOIS lookup is a very valuable resource.