Safe WhoIs Search .com - safe domain name searching

Have you ever looked up a domain name to see if it's available, then decided the next day, or even a few minutes later, to register it and find it no longer available?

Sometimes, it's just the timing. You find an interesting domain name and soon after that, someone else thinks of it too and registers it, BUT, sometimes a domain name will get registered because you searched for it. There are several ways or reasons this can happen.

¹ - Technically, this means they are registering the domain and then selling it to you. This used to be fairly common because new registrations had a 5 day grace period. The registrar or reseller would register the domain, then if you don't order it from them, they would let it go a few days later and it would cost them nothing. One day Icann (controller of .com, .net, .org, and a few others) decided to do something about that and impose a limit on the number of cancellations allowed. That pretty much stopped that problem, but the second problem still exists.

² - Like #1, but instead of automatically registering every domain checked, someone is monitoring the whois checks and choosing the better domains to register. If you don't order the registration from them in the next few days, they may let it go, but are more likely to keep it and add it to their list of domains for sale.

³ - Someone working for the company you used to do your search is watching domain checks. If something is available and they think it may be worth more than standard registration fees, they think they can make money off it, or they like it and want it themselves, they will register it if you don't beat them to it. Any decent company would fire an employee who does this, but it may take a while before it is discovered.

⁴ - This does happen. Considering the billions of people worldwide and the high volume of new domain registrations, if the domain you are checking happens to be something others may be interested in, it is possible that someone else just times it right. Now if the domain you check is something nobody else would have any interest in, but it gets registered after you check it, somebody is watching domain checks.

⁵ - This actually can happen. You check availability and the check says it's available, but it may have just gotten registered by someone else, or it may have already been registered but the search gave the wrong answer. WhoIs checks are done by some kind of script. These scripts can and do sometimes get the wrong results or misinterpret the results they get; and depending on how they do the check, they may even be a bit behind the times. (see more about how whois checks are done below)

If you check availability directly at a registry, find it available, then go to register it and it's not available, it would most likely be the timing. Some registries are also registrars, and there have been cases where they would automatically register domains so you had to register it directly with them rather than through a registrar, but that's very uncommon.

WhoIs and availability checks are actually 2 different things. A WhoIs check asks the registry or registrar for information about a domain name, while an availability check merely checks to see if it is registered or available. A WhoIs check does accomplish both because if a WhoIs check says no info available, it usually means the domain name is available. An availability check is a simple request to the appropriate registry asking if a domain name is available.

WhoIs checks use scripts to connect to the registry and request information about the domain. What happens and how much information you get depends on the registry.

The .com TLD uses what's called a thin registry. That means the registry only has basic info like dates, nameservers, and the registrar the domain was registered through. It also gives you the registrar's whois address. To get more details, like who owns the domain, you need to do another WhoIs check with the registrar. Some scripts automatically show the full details from the registrar. They do this by doing the first check to get the registrar, then doing the second check at the registrar and showing you this data. Our WhoIs search shows you both. (Try It)

The .org TLD uses what's called a thick registry. That means the registry gives full details about the domain, including the registrar the domain was registered through. It doesn't automatically give you the registrar's whois address because you don't need it, but in most cases, you can still query the registrar's whois address as well, but all you will get is possibly different layout of the same data.

Some ccTLD registries, like .to, give out very little information about a domain registration and don't make more information available easily.

Availability checks use scripts to connect to the registry and just ask if the domain is available. End users rarely have the ability to do that and therefore have to either do a whois check, or check for availability through a registrar or reseller. You may think, what's wrong with just doing whois checks to see if a domain is available...

The main difference between whois and availability checks, other than the amount of info provided, is volume allowed. Whois checking has restrictions, like automation and number of queries. Spammers sometimes do a large volume of whois checks with a program that automatically gathers email addresses so they can spam the domain owners. Availability checks on the other hand, since they provide no data, allow higher volumes and automation. They do still have limits, like 1 check per second for the common TLDs, but whois check limits are much lower than that. If you are trying to find an available domain name, checking for availability is much better than doing whois checks.

Most businesses that offer domain registration services have a form to search for domain names. Most of them also log all whois or availability searches, including us. We DO NOT monitor whois searches and watch for good available domains. Our logging is strictly for analysis and statistics, and for any possible legal needs. If you check a domain name through us and find it registered shortly after by someone else, let us know and we will look into it. If an employee, or someone with access to our system, registered the domain, we will transfer the registration to you for the cost of domain registration.

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