WHOIS Lookup — How to Find Who Owns a Domain

Want to know who owns a domain, when it was registered, or when it expires? WHOIS lookup gives you all this information.

You found a domain name you want to buy, but it's already taken. Who owns it? When does it expire? Is there any contact information? WHOIS is the protocol that answers these questions.

What is WHOIS?

WHOIS is a query-response protocol that provides registration information about domain names. When someone registers a domain, their details (or their privacy service's details) are stored in a public database. WHOIS lets you query that database.

What WHOIS tells you

Registrant information — The person or organization that owns the domain. With WHOIS privacy services (now very common), this shows the privacy service instead.

Registration dates — When the domain was first registered, when it was last updated, and when it expires. Useful for knowing if a domain might become available soon.

Name servers — Which DNS servers are authoritative for the domain. This tells you who's hosting the DNS (Cloudflare, AWS Route 53, etc.).

Registrar — Which company the domain was registered through (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, etc.).

WHOIS privacy

Since GDPR took effect in 2018, most registrars automatically enable WHOIS privacy. Instead of the registrant's personal information, WHOIS queries return the privacy service's contact details. This is a good thing for personal privacy, but it does make it harder to contact domain owners.

Look it up

Toolozo's WHOIS Lookup tool lets you query registration data for any domain. Enter a domain name and see its registration details, expiry date, name servers, and registrar information. Quick, free, and requires no signup.