What is Whois?

Whois is a service that provides basic information about a registered domain, such as domain owner contact information, domain availability status and the company with which the domain is registered (also called the Registrar). Whois also provides registration and expiration dates of a domain as well as the nameservers the domain is using. ICANN regulations require all domain Registrants to keep their contact details valid and up-to-date to help prevent fraud and identity theft. You can find more information about Whois on this page.

We offer Whois Lookup option to check details associated with a domain. Information contained within the lookup depends on the Registry to some extent.

However, for most gTLDs/new gTLDs you'll see details like who a domain is registered to, when it was registered, when it expires, and where the DNS is hosted. For the majority of ccTLDs, you will have to go to the Registry's website to get more information.

The amount of information available in a record will depend on the type of TLD, and the Registrar of the domain.

Domain Registrars usually allow their customers to change their domain contact information directly from their accounts (without needing to contact the Registrar's customer support). Updates to Whois information may take up to 24 hours.

Some domain Registries allow domain owners to hide certain details in their public Whois records. They do this by replacing the Registrant's data with the one of the Registrar or hosting company.

This feature is called Domain Privacy Protection, or domain privacy. For example, in a user's public Whois record with domain protection, their personal email is substituted with a string that looks like http://whois.nicenic.net/?page=whoisform&emailtype=admin