Guide to Domain Name WHOIS Search

Here are some reasons that you might want to do a WHOIS lookup:

1. To see who owns a domain name
2. To see when your domain name expires so you can renew it on time
3. To make sure that your domain information is up-to-date
4. To research a competitor or sales lead
5. To inquire about buying a domain directly from the owner

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• If you do a WHOIS lookup and don't get all the information outlined above, try going to the Registrar's URL or Referral URL and search on the WHOIS tool at that site.
• Some registrars provide the premium service of hiding WHOIS information of their customers – usually for a fee – so sometimes you won't be able to find what you're looking for when you search for the name and contact information of the owner of domain.
• Not all WHOIS tools are set up to query every database for every request. Some will simply find the registrar and send you a link to that registrar. You will have to then follow that link and search that registrar's WHOIS tool to get more information about the domain.
• Other WHOIS tools will actually query many other databases automatically and return the information.
• Still other WHOIS tools try to provide additional information about the domain or format the output of the WHOIS request in a user-friendly way.

Subscribe to

Try our free weekly WhatWorks newsletter, with business how-to advice
& resources from Work.com.

click here to view a sample issue