WHOIS Lookup
A WHOIS lookup asks the registry who a domain is registered with and when it was created. Type a domain and this page returns the registrar, the dates, the status codes and the name servers: github.com comes back as MarkMonitor, Inc., created 9 October 2007, expiring 9 October 2026, DNSSEC unsigned, with eight name servers.
About WHOIS Lookup
Enter a domain — the field strips http://, www. and anything after the first slash — and the page queries the WHOIS record. Two cards summarise it first: Domain Age in years and months counted from the creation date, and days until expiry, coloured green beyond 90 days, amber between 30 and 90, and red under 30 or already past.
Four tabs hold the detail. Overview lists the registrar, its URL, the WHOIS server and the EPP status codes — github.com carries three of them, clientUpdateProhibited, clientTransferProhibited and clientDeleteProhibited, the locks that stop a domain being altered or moved without the registrar releasing it. Name Servers lists the delegation, Dates shows creation, last update and expiry side by side, and Raw Data shows the unparsed text exactly as the WHOIS server returned it, which is where anything the parser did not recognise still appears.
What you will not see is contact detail. Registries redact registrant names, addresses and email addresses on most generic top-level domains, so a lookup for a large site returns the registrar and the technical record and nothing personal — github.com's response here contains no registrant fields at all. That is the norm now, not a failure of the lookup.
Limits: it takes one domain at a time, not an IP address, and the validator wants a hostname with a real top-level domain. Some country-code registries publish far less than the generic ones, or nothing at all. The last ten domains you looked up are kept in your own browser and cleared with the Clear button; nothing else is stored.
Use Cases
How to use
Type or paste the domain into the box; the scheme, a www prefix and anything after the first slash are removed automatically.
Run the lookup and read the two cards: Domain Age in years and months, and the days remaining before expiry.
Open the Overview tab for the registrar, the WHOIS server and the status codes.
Check Name Servers for the delegation and Dates for creation, last update and expiry.
Use Raw Data when a field looks missing — the registry's untouched response is there, and Recent keeps your last ten lookups in this browser.
Click Copy to put the record on your clipboard, or Export JSON to download the full result as a .json file.
Pro Tips
- You can paste a full URL: the field removes the scheme, a leading www. and everything after the first slash before the query goes out.
- The expiry colour is a threshold, not a judgement: green is more than 90 days, amber 30 to 90, red under 30 or expired. A red badge on a domain you own is a renewal reminder.
- The status codes are worth reading. clientTransferProhibited means the registrar will not release the domain until the lock is lifted, which is normal on an active domain and something to fix before a transfer.
- If a field is blank in Overview, look in Raw Data before concluding it is missing — the registry may have used wording the parser did not recognise.
- Recent keeps your last ten lookups in this browser only, so a private window starts empty and Clear removes them for good.
Troubleshooting
The page says the domain name is not valid.
The check wants a hostname with a real top-level domain, such as example.com. An IP address, a bare word with no dot, a path or a search phrase will all be rejected before the query is sent. Paste the domain on its own — a full URL is fine, since the scheme and the path are stripped.
Overview is mostly empty but Raw Data has text.
Either the domain is unregistered, in which case the raw text begins with a no-match line, or the registry used wording the parser did not recognise. Read Raw Data: whatever the WHOIS server sent is there in full, including fields the summary could not map.
There is no registrant name or email anywhere.
That is expected. Personal contact details are redacted from public WHOIS output on most generic top-level domains, and privacy services replace them on many others. The registrar, the dates, the status codes and the name servers are the parts that remain public.
A country-code domain returns almost nothing.
Country-code registries set their own policies, and several publish only a minimal record — sometimes just the status and the name servers, sometimes nothing to an anonymous query. The registry's own website is the place to look when this page comes back thin.
The lookup failed to fetch.
The request goes through this site to the WHOIS server, so a timeout, a rate limit at the registry or a brief network problem all show as a failure. Wait a moment and try again; if one domain fails repeatedly while others work, its registry is likely refusing the query rather than the tool being broken.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is a query to the registry that holds a domain's registration record. The answer says which registrar manages the domain, when it was created and when it expires, which status locks are in place and which name servers it delegates to. This page runs that query and lays the answer out in four tabs.
Type or paste the domain into the box and run the lookup. You do not need the scheme or the www prefix — the field removes them. The two cards give you the age and the days to expiry at a glance, and the tabs hold the registrar, the name servers, the dates and the raw record.
The underlying registration data is published by registries and registrars and can be queried at no cost, which is what this page does. There is no account, no key and no per-day quota here. Commercial services charge for extras such as historical records and monitoring, not for the current record itself.
Because registries redact it. Registrant names, postal addresses, phone numbers and email addresses were removed from public output for most generic top-level domains following data-protection rules, and many registrars also sell privacy services. The lookup for github.com on this page returns no registrant fields at all.
RDAP, the Registration Data Access Protocol. It answers the same questions but returns structured JSON over HTTPS instead of free-form text, and it supports access levels so that authorised requesters can be given more than the public sees. The classic WHOIS text is still what most public tools, including this one, display.
They are EPP codes set by the registrar or the registry. github.com shows clientUpdateProhibited, clientTransferProhibited and clientDeleteProhibited — three locks preventing changes, transfers and deletion until the registrar lifts them. Codes beginning with server rather than client are set by the registry and cannot be removed by the registrar.
No. The field validates a hostname with a real top-level domain, so an IP address is rejected before the query is sent. IP allocations are held by the regional internet registries rather than by domain registries, which is a different lookup with a different answer.
Probably, but check with a registrar before assuming. An unregistered name makes the registry answer with a no-match line rather than a record, which is why the fields come back empty and the text appears under Raw Data. Some names are also reserved or held back even when no registration exists.
It is the date the registry holds, and it is reliable for whether the registration lapses — but a domain does not usually become available on that date. Registrars run a grace period and then a redemption period before a name is released, so treat the countdown as the last safe day to renew, not the day someone else can buy it.
Querying the public record is a normal, everyday operation and the data is published deliberately so that domains can be contacted and disputes resolved. What the record is used for is a separate question: the contact data that still appears on some domains is published for administrative purposes, not for bulk marketing.