Technical ConfusionBecause Technology Is Confusing

Finding Domain Name Information

Sometimes we need to find information about a domain name or website. Maybe it’s an address, a phone number, or where a domain is hosted. You can search a domain name in a whois database and you’ll find information.

A Whois search allows us to do this - it’s a public database that contains all kinds of information, about every domain name registered on the internet. To find this kind of information, you need to search a special database. You can search Google for the phrase whois search or you can use one of the sites listed here:

http://betterwhois.com
http://allwhois.com

My favorite whois search on the web is BetterWhois. All you do is type the domain name in the text box - make sure to include the .com or .net.

We’re looking for information about the domain notarealdomain.com which just happens to be a registered domain. The registrant has decided to use the registrar’s privacy features, so you won’t see any addresses or names that apply directly to the registrant:

Domain Name: NOTAREALDOMAIN.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: ok
Updated Date: 19-mar-2008
Creation Date: 19-mar-2008
Expiration Date: 19-mar-2009

So, what are you looking at?

You’ll also see this:

Registrant Contact - This is who owns the domain.
Administrative Contact - This is who is in charge of the domain.
Technical Contact - This is who you contact if there’s a problem.
Billing Contact - This is who pays for the domain.

All of the contact info can be the same, or it can be different. In this particular case, the information is all the same - it’s under the Registrar’s contact info, because the registrant wants privacy so the contact information is hidden. Privacy registrations look like this:

notarealdomain.com Private Registrant
notarealdomain.com@proxy.dreamhost.com
A Happy DreamHost Customer
417 Associated Rd #324
Brea, CA 92821
US
+1.2139471032

If you want to find where a domain is hosted, you can read through the whois - once in a while the info is there. Usually you’ll need to take the nameserver domain name (without the ns1. before the domain name) and do a whois on that. This can go on endlessly, depending on how the host is set up.

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Domain Research Tools - DNS Tools

Nikkole of 7gens and I are discussing green web hosting, and how to research if a company is really green, or just claiming to be. It’s a long discussion, and you can read it here.

Since it is a long discussion, I’ve decided to write how I research domain names in a couple of new posts.

I’m skeptical of any company that claims to be green and doesn’t put their money where their mouth is. Truth of the matter is, very few can claim to be truly green: simply because the datacenters where they house their servers are not green, and not even close to it. Because of this, folks can be duped into thinking a hosting company is something it’s not.

Tools needed to help in domain research

Open a copy of Notepad, Word or your favorite text editor. Remember to save it. You’ll need a place to take notes (or you’ll find yourself constantly backtracking.)

Use a browser that has tabbed windows - like Firefox.

Online Tools

These tools will tell you all kinds of information like IP addresses, where a domain is hosted, abuse addresses.

http://dns-tools.domaintools.com/ - (Some free services, some paid)
http://www.4dnstools.com/ - This one is pretty comprehensive
http://www.iptools.com/ - Also comprehensive
http://network-tools.com/

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/590 - If you use Firefox, this is a nifty little addon. It displays the ip address of the current page in your status bar. It enables you to copy the ip to the clipboard. This is not mandatory.

http://www.myipneighbors.com/ - This is a cool standalone dns tool that is good to have in your arsenal. You plug in a domain name or IP, and it will tell you how many sites are being hosted on a server.

Of any of the tools you choose above, these are the primary three utilities you will use:

WHOIS Lookup
The whois lookup or search is a database of all top level domains currently registered on the internet, and contains public information. Some people - and companies - will hide this info by using privacy services offered thru the domain registrar.

IP WHOIS Lookup
This is also a whois database search, only you’re looking for the owner of an IP address. This is usually a big company like Verio, or ATT. It also gives you names, addresses and contact info of the company who lease the IP addresses.

Reverse DNS lookup
This tool will tell you where a domain name or address should resolve. Not all domains and IP addresses resolve properly - they should if set up correctly. If not set up correctly, it can result in email issues. I use it because once in a while you’ll find an IP address doesn’t resolve to say your hosting company, but the people who host your hosting company.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with this stuff, so I’ll end the post on domain research tools here.