Free WHOIS Domain Lookup

What a WHOIS lookup tells you

Every domain name is registered through a registrar and recorded in a registry, and some of that information is public. A WHOIS lookup retrieves it. It answers practical questions: when was this domain first registered, when does it expire, which company manages it, what status is it in, and which nameservers is it delegated to. The answers help when you are buying or selling a domain, investigating a suspicious website, or making sure your own domain is not about to lapse.

This free tool queries the registry’s own RDAP service, the modern replacement for classic WHOIS, and falls back to a traditional WHOIS query where a registry does not offer RDAP. That means the data comes from the source rather than from a scraped copy.

How to use it

Enter a domain name and press Look up. The results show the registration details in a clean list and explain any status codes in plain English. Use the domain itself, such as example.com, rather than a full address or subdomain.

What you will see

• The registrar responsible for the domain.
• The creation date, so you can work out the age of the domain.
• The expiry date, and how many days remain.
• Status codes such as clientTransferProhibited, which means the domain is locked against unauthorised transfers.
• The nameservers the registry has on record.
• Whether DNSSEC is enabled at the registry.

Privacy and what is hidden

Since data protection rules came into force, most registries no longer publish the personal details of the owner. You will typically see the registrar and the technical data, but the registrant’s name and contact details are redacted or replaced by a proxy service. That is normal and not a sign of anything suspicious. The tool reports what the registry publishes and does not try to uncover anything more.

Using the dates

The expiry date deserves a place in your calendar. A domain that lapses can be lost, and recovering one after the grace period is expensive and sometimes impossible. Also check that the registration is in your own name or your company’s and that the contact email is monitored, because renewal reminders go there. When you are assessing a domain you are thinking of buying, its age and history give context, although age alone does not make a domain better or worse for search.

If the nameservers shown do not match the ones you expect, use the DNS lookup to compare what the registry says with what the domain’s own zone publishes. A mismatch is a common cause of intermittent problems after a move between DNS providers.

Checks before buying a domain

If you are buying a domain, a lookup is the first step of due diligence. Look at the age, the registrar, whether the domain is locked, and how long is left before it expires. A domain that expires in a few weeks may be about to drop, so confirm the seller can transfer it. Follow up by checking what the domain used to host, and whether its name has any history of spam or penalties, because a bad reputation can carry over to new owners.

Stay ahead of expiries with an account

Checking one domain at a time is fine for curiosity, but agencies and site owners often look after dozens. In an SEO Web Data account you can check expiry dates for up to ten domains at once, watch a list of domains every week and be alerted at sixty, thirty, fourteen, seven and one days before a registration expires. The same watchlist alerts you to changed nameservers, mail records and certificate expiry. More than seventy domain tools sit alongside your site audits, rank tracking and reports, and every plan starts with a free trial.

Frequently asked questions

More free tools

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See all free domain tools, or read how the domain and IP information tools work inside the dashboard.