Domain WHOIS

WHOIS - and its modern replacement, RDAP - is the public record a domain registry keeps for every name it manages: who registered it, which company manages the registration, when it expires, and which servers answer for it. This lookup queries that record live, straight from the registry or its registrar.

Registrar

The company a domain is registered through - not the same as who owns it. Every registrar carries a public IANA ID and a required abuse contact, even when the registrant's own details are redacted.

Registrant privacy

Since GDPR (2018), most registrars redact an individual registrant's name, address, and email from the public record by default - replaced with a privacy proxy or left blank. A business registrant's details are more often shown in full.

Domain status

EPP status codes describing what can and can't currently be done with a domain - clientTransferProhibited blocks an unauthorized transfer, pendingDelete means it's about to be released. Most registered domains show clientTransferProhibited by default - a normal safeguard, not a problem.

Expiration

Domains are registered for a fixed term, typically renewed yearly. A domain isn't deleted the moment it expires - registries give a grace period, then a redemption period, before it's finally released back to the public.

DNSSEC

Whether a domain's DNS answers are cryptographically signed, letting a resolver verify they haven't been tampered with in transit. Set at both the registrar and the domain's own name servers - most domains still don't have it enabled.

Name servers

The servers that actually answer DNS queries for a domain - a different thing from the registrar, and often run by a completely different company (Cloudflare, AWS, and similar).

Want the actual DNS records this domain publishes? See DNS Lookup.