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How To See Who Owns A Website Domain

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Why Find Who Owns A Domain Name

How to Find Out Who Owns a Domain – HostGator

Before you go looking for the owners of various domain names, its important to ask yourself why youd want to do this. What possible benefits can you get from learning this information?

Believe it or not, it can actually be incredibly useful for numerous reasons. For starters, domains are always up for sale, and you might be interested in purchasing an existing domain name. In which case, by looking up who owns it, you can find all their contact details to get in touch and enquire about the purchase. Many people choose to purchase a domain name when they create a new website for a company or brand and wish to have a certain name to fit the site perfectly.

Following on from this, you also get to see when the domain expires. Again, this is perfect if you want to purchase one, as you can see when it needs to be renewed, and can contact the owner at the ideal time to submit a bid.

Furthermore, using a tool to lookup the owner of a domain name can help you with your own websites too. Yes, if you own a domain, you already know who owns it thats obvious. However, when you look this up, you will gain loads more information and can cross check it with your own. This includes various registration details about the owner which you need to ensure are correct. If theyre not, you can change them so that everything is how it should be, and you wont run into any issues. Plus, youll see when your domain expires, which enables you to re-purchase it when the time is right.

How To Hide Your Information From Whois Lookups

Online privacy is incredibly important and some people do not want their contact details publicly available on the internet. For anyone who does not want to sell their domain or be contacted by those browsing the Whois directory, we highly recommend purchasing Advanced Security for all of your domains, which includes Whois Privacy, Domain Lock Plus, and a free SSL certificate. It masks your contact information and prevents spammers and telemarketers from using your information for no good.

Are The Domain Owner And The Website Owner The Same

In most situations, the domain owner and the website owner are the same. But technically, that doesnt have to be the case. So, who is the owner of a domain?

Businesses are a great example to look at. A business website is part of the company, which can be owned by a partnership or corporation. However, domains are usually registered to one individual.

When a domain is registered, it will have several contacts listed for it. These are Registrant, Admin, Technical, and Billing. The Registrant contact is the legal owner of the domain.

If you hired an agency to build your website, someone on its staff might have registered the domain. If its not under your contact information, you wouldnt be the websites legal owner.

And finally, sometimes, domain registration services retain ownership of your domain. If they charge you for managing your domain, such as updating MX or A records, then thats a good sign that you dont legally own your domain.

However, if you find the domain owner, it will be easy to get to the website owner and vice versa.

Lets look at five proven ways to find out who owns a website.

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Go For A Different Domain Name

There is always a chance that even with all the aforementioned steps, the owner will flat out refuse to sell their domain or name a price that is way outside your budget. In this case, you can consider a different domain name.

Do not forget to try your domain name with different TLDs . If the .com version of the domain is taken, maybe the .net will be available. Check out our article about the different types of domains if you wish to learn more.

Even if that is not the case, sit down and try to brainstorm other domain names. Who knows? Maybe you will come up with one that you like even more than your original idea.

How Is Whois Changing

How to Find Out Who Owns a Domain

In light of the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, coming into force within the European Union in May 2018, many Registries and Registrars that operate within that region, or globally, are required to gain Registrant’s consent before disclosing Personally Identifiable Information to any third parties or the public. As a result of the implementation of the GDRP, much of the data historically found within WHOIS will no longer be included or be redacted. The absence of this information has a trickle-down effect throughout the domain industry, affecting WHOIS data output for domain names and Registrants that do not have an immediate or obvious nexus to the European Union

Read Also: Can I Transfer My Domain To Another Host

How To Find Out Who Owns A Domain

Why would you ever need to know the ownership of a domain?

Well, sometimes youre just curious about who owns a website but sometimes domain info can be much more valuable.

If you want to know how to find out who owns a domain name, then you need to start with a who is?

Stick around and we will show you how to find out the owner of a domain, why you need to check a domain, and how to search for a domain of your very own.

Build, brand, and grow your business with Zyro

Why Do Some Whois Queries Have More Information Than Others

With WHOIS now in a state of change due in part to privacy laws such as GDPR, the data displayed in a WHOIS lookup can vary to some degree as each of the Registrant, Registrar and Registry have a jurisdictional nexus with such laws.

Where a nexus with the EU’s GDPR is present, Personally Identifiable Information will often be removed or redacted from WHOIS output.

Also Check: How Do I Set Up Email With My Domain Name

What If The Whois Information Is Hidden

With the recent introduction of new GDPR privacy legislation in the UK and Europe, many domain registrars are now hiding the personal information of domain name owners, unless they have expressly opted in to allow it to be published. This presents a problem for anyone looking to contact the owner or find out who is in control of the domain name or website.

There is a last possible solution which may reveal contact details or who owns a website or domain. Its called The Wayback Machine and is an unthinkably large historic library of websites. Using this tool, if youre lucky, you can view an old version of the website. This is often useful if your domain name has expired or youve lost your website, but in this case will allow you to scan through the pages to find a contact name, address or telephone number. You may notice that images are not working and the website looks very broken, but this shouldnt hinder efforts to find a contact page for example.

Find Out Who Is The Owner Of A Domain Name

How to Find Out Who Owns a Domain Name

Have you ever wanted to have a certain domain name, but it was taken? Today we will walk you through the steps of finding out who owns the domain.

So, you have a new and amazing idea for a site. Great, you spent hours trying to come up with a simple yet catchy domain name. Now you try to register it, but a very unfortunate thing happens someone has already claimed your desired domain name.

Although initially, it could be a little bit of a let-down that your dream domain name is already taken, there are a few solutions you could try. One option is to rebrand and come up with a different name or try to purchase this name from the owner, the latter option being the best if you already have a part of the site ready.

Do not forget, even a registered domain name is still possibly available if you can find the owner. Actually, buying and reselling domains is a big business in itself.

Recommended Reading: Who Actually Owns Domain Names

Some More Registrant Information Domain Server Information Domain Name Record Information

WHOIS performs the required task efficiently, however, at the same time it should be noted that the information available may be exploited or utilized for spam and other purposes. You may end up receiving emails and unnecessary information from different resources and start filling up your inbox. To get rid of this problem, there are certain tools to help protect your privacy.

As in the case of www.DomainSherpa.com, we are able to see only limited information about the actual owner as the information is camouflaged through a privacy protection service called domain name privacy. Many domain name registrars offer domain privacy to mask the actual information of the domain owner. The privacy feature helps display third party information to safeguard your personal information from publically available information. Personal information is collected by the registrar and is accessible only on request by following certain privacy rules and regulations.

Search The Whois Directory

Whenever a new domain is registered, the registrar is required to collect some basic contact information. This information is then submitted to the WHOIS directory, creating a large database of who runs each website on the net.

Therefore, searching the WHOIS directory should be the next step on the list if the first method did not work. Simply visit the ICANN lookup subdomain and enter the desired domain name in the search bar. Click Lookup and scroll down. Here you will find all the WHOIS data on the domain name.

If the domain owner did not pick WHOIS Protection, also known as Domain Privacy Protection option when registering the domain, his or her contact information will be seen there.

Of course, in most cases, people opt-in for domain privacy protection, thus you will only see the original domain registrar and the expiration date. In this case, you will know if the domain will be available again soon .

Even if that is not the case, knowing the domain registrar is also a plus because then you can do the following.

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Find The Information You Need In Whois Records

If the domain owner is interested in selling their domain, their contact information is typically available in the Whois records. However, youll sometimes find that the information youre looking for has been blocked by the domain provider for privacy reasons.

If the domain that youre interested in is being sold by someone who is looking for a willing buyer, the steps outlined above is the easiest way to start negotiating a purchase. But if the seller has hidden their contact information or is not interested in selling their domain, dont despair! There are workarounds for those who are interested in a domain that has already been registered.

What Is The Process To Lookup Domain Name Details

Find Out Who Owns A Domain?

The domain name registration process has been engineered in a very transparent way. Everybody has an open access to obtain information about domain name registrant and the ownership of a domain by just clicking on certain informative links. It also helps in keeping a track of domain name expiry dates and the start date of registration.

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Who Manages Domain Names

The registries that were originally set up to manage domain names were the InterNIC and the NSI.

The InterNIC was originally set up by the National Science Foundation and eventually transferred to the US Department of Commerce.

NSI was a service provider and initially, it didnt have any formal role in domain name administration but later on, it became an ICANN-accredited registry operator.

These two registries decided to collaborate and form a non-profit entity called Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in 1998.

Since then, ICANN has been responsible for managing domain names worldwide.

How is a Domain Name Different from a Website and Web Hosting?

The domain name and web hosting are two essential elements of a website.

It is the main identifier of the site, and the web host is responsible for keeping your data secure and managing your domain name.

The domain name tells people where they can find your website, while the web host provides a connection to the internet.

Some web host and Domain providers are below

Namecheap

Hostinger

How Do You Find Out Who Owns A Domain Name

Now, were ready to move into the primary focus of this article. Lets discover how to find the owner of a domain name. Fortunately, its not very hard to do. By using just one resource, you should be able to see all the information and details that you need.

The domain name registration information has been kept very transparent. Its open access, and within just a few clicks youll be able to discover who the registered owner is.

The tool that youre going to use is whois.net.

Youll see who the registrar is, how to contact them both by phone and email and when the domain was created. Youll also be able to check when the domain will expire and when it was last updated.

Using this information, youll be able to get an idea of whether the domain name may be for sale. If the owner has had a domain name for an extended period, they may be unwilling to sell it to you unless you make it worth their while.

Read Also: Can You Buy A Domain Name

Perform Reverse Ip Lookups

Some domain owners may have opted for private registration and in that case, their contact details wont be available in the public whois database.

The next option you should try is a Reverse IP lookup. These tools determine the IP address of the server that is hosting a website – example.com in our example – and will then provide you are list of other websites that are hosted on that same server. The logic is that if a person has multiple websites, he could be using the same web server to host them.

You can use Bing to perform a Reverse IP check for any domain or an even easier tool is spyonweb.com just put the sites domain and it will show other websites hosted on that server. If you get hundreds of domains in the search results, it possibly means that the person is using a shared host and thus he may not be the owner of all these domains.

Why Should Registrants Still Utilize Whois Privacy Services

Web Site & Internet Help : How to Find Out Who Owns a Domain?

The WHOIS database lists information about each domain registration online and is open to the public. In regards to Registrant information, the amount that is displayed publicly may differ based on a number of factors, including:

  • The specific domain extension
  • The type of Registrant used for the registration

This means that malicious entities are still able to quickly access this public directory and survey for potential pieces of information to exploits. By replacing your information through a privacy service, your information is effectively blocked from public access.

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