Free domain checker and WHOIS lookup

A domain lookup used to be called a WHOIS query. The registries have since replaced the old WHOIS protocol with RDAP, which returns the same facts in a structured form over a secure connection. This tool asks the registry that runs the extension you typed — Verisign for .com, KeNIC for .ke, and so on — and lays out what it publishes.

The registrar

The company the domain is currently held with. This is who the owner pays, who can unlock the name for a transfer, and who to chase if a renewal has gone wrong. It is not the same as the registry, which runs the extension itself and never deals with the public directly.

The registration and expiry dates

When the name was first registered and the date the current term runs out. The expiry date in a lookup is the registry's own record, which makes it the one worth trusting. A long registration history is also a reasonable signal that a business has been around a while — useful when you are checking a supplier you have not dealt with before.

The nameservers

Where the domain's DNS is answered, which in practice tells you who hosts the site and the email. Nameservers are the part you change when you move hosting, and they are the quickest way to confirm a move has actually taken effect.

The status

Registry status codes, in plain words. client transfer prohibited means the name is locked at the registrar — the normal, safe setting, and something you unlock yourself when you want to move. pending delete or redemption period means a name has expired and is on its way back to the pool.

If the checker shows your own domain expiring within the next couple of months, renew it rather than wait. A lapsed domain takes the website and every email address on it down at the same moment, and getting it back is neither quick nor guaranteed.

• It is yours and hosted elsewhere. Renew it at the registrar it is held with, then consider moving it to us at the next renewal so everything sits in one place.
• It is yours and already with us. Renew from the client area, or switch on auto-renew so the question never comes up again.
• It belongs to someone else. Expiry is not a handover. Most extensions give the holder a grace period and then a redemption period before the name is released, and plenty are renewed in the last few days. Watch the date, and have a second choice ready.

Moving a name to us is straightforward: unlock it at your current registrar, ask them for the authorisation code, and start the transfer. A paid transfer adds a year to whatever time is left, so nothing is lost by moving a name that still has months on it.

Three reasons, none of them a problem with the name itself.

• The details are redacted. Nearly every registry now withholds the holder's name, address, phone number and email from public lookups. The technical record — dates, registrar, nameservers, status — is still published.
• The extension has no public lookup service. A handful of country extensions run no RDAP service at all. There is nothing to read, so the checker says so and sends you to our domain search instead.
• The name is not registered. Some registries, KeNIC among them, simply do not answer questions about names nobody holds. A blank answer for a name you suspect is free usually means exactly that — and the domain search will confirm it and price it.