How Do I Find Out Where My Domain Is Registered

Introduction

Every website, big and small, requires a domain name. This is the address that your visitors will use to access your site. Often times, when you register a domain, you will set the registration to go on auto-pilot. Then, every year, or every two years, or even every ten years, you get charged the registration fee.

But what happens if you haven’t logged into your domain registrar’s website in a while and, for example, you want to change the name of your business? Or what if you simply want to buy up more of the intellectual space surrounding your business’s domain?

It’s been years since you had to think about the company you used to register your original domain with. But, you know it’s wise to register all your domains with the same company for organizational reasons. However, you can’t remember off the top of your head who you originally purchased your domain with.

How Do You Find Your Domain’s Registrar?

The first step may be to look through your email and find anything related to your domain name and “registration”. Domain registrars often inform you through an email that you have been charged. This email receipt will have the domain registrar’s name and more important information for you.

Another method of finding the registrar is by searching the WHOIS database. WHOIS is a public database that houses the information collected when someone registers a domain name or updates their DNS settings. ICANN, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has been regulating the WHOIS database since 1982.

ICANN’s Registration Data Lookup Tool is a terrific resource for finding information on domain names. And, if you search your domain name, you should be able to see who your domain was originally registered with.