WHOIS

WHOIS is how you look up domain name registration information. It contains information about start and end dates for the registration, registrant contact information, name servers, and the registration provider.

Privacy

DreamHost offers a privacy feature which protects your personal contact information from the public. To use it, edit your domain at https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=domain.registration.

More information: Domain WHOIS Privacy Service

Breaking Down a WHOIS query

There are two parts to a WHOIS query, the central registry, and the registrar information. This is two separate connections, which is why sometimes the first half shows up quickly.

Lets break down a WHOIS query for dreamhost.com:

The Central Registry Info

  Domain Name: DREAMHOST.COM
  Registrar: NEW DREAM NETWORK, LLC
  Whois Server: whois.dreamhost.com
  Referral URL: http://www.dreamhost.com
  Name Server: NS1.DREAMHOST.COM
  Name Server: NS2.DREAMHOST.COM
  Name Server: NS3.DREAMHOST.COM
  Status: ACTIVE
  Updated Date: 03-nov-2004
  Creation Date: 23-sep-1997
  Expiration Date: 22-sep-2013

This information shows the domain name in question, what company provided registration services, a link to their WHOIS server, the domain status, name servers, and create/expire dates. After you have this information, your WHOIS client will generally connect to the registrar's server to look up the contact information. The information in the central registry is updated roughly every 24 hours, so if you see information in the registrars WHOIS section that is different then the central registries, try back in a day.

The Registrar's Info

  Domain Name: dreamhost.com

  Registrant Contact:

     DreamHost Web Hosting         internic@DREAMHOST.COM
     DreamHost Web Hosting
     PO BOX 5479
     Huntington Park, CA 90255
     US
     +1.2139471032

  Administrative Contact:
  Technical Contact:
  Billing Contact:

  Record created on 1997-09-22 21:00:00.
  Record expires on 2013-09-21 21:00:00.

  Domain servers in listed order:

     ns1.dreamhost.com
     ns2.dreamhost.com
     ns3.dreamhost.com

This shows the current contact information for the domain. This information should be kept up to date at all times, in case somthing goes wrong with your domain having false or obscured data can simply complicate matters. I edited out our Admin/Tech/Billing contact information here for brevities sake. This information is provided by your registrar, and does not actually affect your domains presence on the web. This information is updated when you submit it.

External Links

• Whois Source - A good way of looking up WHOIS information.
• http://whois.domaintools.com/dreamhost.com - Example search (note how the domain is simply appended to the end of whois.domaintools.com/).