What is WHOIS?

WHOIS (pronounced ‘who is’) is a service anyone can use to lookup information about a domain name; including who it’s registered to, when it was registered and its expiry date.

WHOIS queries the relevant registry database for a requested domain name and will tell you who the current registrar for the domain name is, and the name servers the domain point to.

It’s possible to buy privacy protection - which replaces your information on the WHOIS database with a contact forwarding service - and also opt out of the WHOIS database, though the latter is only possible in certain circumstances.

If WHOIS is unable to find a record it usually means it has not been registered yet, so it’s probably available.

At ANS we have a WHOIS checker as part of our domain name service resource centre.