Whois Lookup Tool 2024: Know the detail about the domain registered or legal owner and tenure of a domain name. This service will also provide you the publicly available contact and other information related to a domain name.
Recently, I have discussed with you the main factors that will make your decision easy for choosing best domain registrar for your domain name.
One of the main factor was to protect your privacy information you had provided to registrar while buying domain name for your website.
In this tutorial you will learn about whois database/record to know the domain registrar and domain registrant contact information in addition to important dates related to your registered domain name.
It was 1980 when the WHOIS was standardized for the first time to look up information related to domain names. There was only one organisation named Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) who handled all domain registration.
What is Whois Database? How to know Owner of Domain Name
Every year millions of individuals, business entities, organisations and government companies register domain names for their website. All information related to any domain name is managed by independent entities known as “registrars” and “registries”.
Registrars via which the domain was purchased or Registry Operators (RO) keeps the master database of all domain names registered in each top-level domain (TLD).
Such information is called whois database and registrars and registries provide public access to that data on registered domain names. WHOIS is nothing but a system that asks the question, who is responsible for a domain name or an IP address?
Domain Name Registration Data: There are mainly three records related to any registered domain name viz. 1) Registrar of Domain Name; 2) Registrant of Domain Name; and (3) Important dates of Domain Name.
1) Registrar of Domain Name:
Registrar of domain name is the authorised entity for registering domain name. Note that if any entity wants to become a registrar then it must earn ICANN accreditation. Whois database includes the name of registrar from where the domain name was purchased. You may get the following information about a provider of domain name:
i) Referral URL: The website address of your domain registrar.
ii) WHOIS Server: The server name of registrar to check domain details.
iii) Name of Registrar: Name of your domain provider.
iv) Abuse Contact Email: Email ID of registrar to complain about domain name.
v) Abuse Contact Phone: Contact number of registrar to complain about domain name.
In addition to the above information WHOIS database also includes Domain Name servers, sponsoring registrar IANA ID, and status of domain name etc. Thus, whois record can help you identify anything related to any registered domain name quickly and easily.
However, if you find that the WHOIS record is not correct then you may complain for the same to ICANN by filling the prescribed whois service complaint form.
Note that if you have transferred your domain name from one registrar to another then the information related to the current registrar shall be displayed.
2) Registrant of Domain Name:
Actually, whenever you purchase a domain name, you have to provide the following personal (Admin), organisational and technical information:
- Full Name: Complete name of the real owner of domain name.
- Organisation: The name of company which owns the particular domain name.
- Mailing Address: Present address of registered owner of domain name.
- Phone Number: Landline number or personal number of registrant.
- Fax Number: FAX number of domain owner.
- Email ID: Email address of admin of domain name.
The above information related to your domain registration shall be publically available if you do not secure it through privacy protection. Thus, the above information is the proof that who is the real owner of particular domain name.
However, if you find that your name is not displaying as a registered owner of your domain you may contact your domain provider for more details. In case you find that the information about your domain name if inaccurate then you may also complain ICANN by filling this online complaint form.
Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form
It is highly recommended that you should protect WHOIS information related to your domain name. Otherwise, you may get lots of attack from the spammers. As a result of which your mail box will full of spams and your website or blogs may be compromised.
3) Important dates of Domain Name:
Following are important dates related to a registered domain name:
- Updated Date: The date on which the domain name was last updated i.e. renewed.
- Creation Date: The date on which domain name was registered.
- Expiration Date: The date on which the domain will expire. In other words, your domain name shall be valid till that date.
Other detail
- Reseller Information
- Authoritative nameserver information of the domain
- Notices and Remarks
Thus, if you are registered owner of a domain name then, you must renew your domain name before the date of expiration.
Note that once your domain name expires you will no longer own that domain name. Thereafter your domain registrar will own your domain name and be able to sell your domain name to the highest bidder.