Free tool

Who owns this domain, and since when?

Type a domain, get everything its registry publishes about it: the day it was created, the day it last changed, the day it expires, the registrar holding it, the name servers answering for it and the statuses set on it. That is the WHOIS record — read here over RDAP, the modern protocol registries actually keep current.

What the record actually tells you

Three things you can act on: how long the name has existed, who holds it today, and what is stopping it from moving. The creation date is what you weigh before paying for a used domain. The registrar is who you email when you inherit a client and nobody remembers where the domain lives. The statuses are what decide, before you start, whether a transfer will go through or bounce back refused.

WHOIS and RDAP: one question, two protocols

Classic WHOIS hands back free-form text, laid out differently by every registry and, since the GDPR, usually trimmed. RDAP hands back the same facts as structured data, from an official server per extension published by IANA. So this page queries RDAP — and still calls itself WHOIS, because that is the word everybody types.

The core sample

The site claims one age, the registry has another

“Since 2004” in a footer is a sentence, not a date. The registry knows one thing: the current registration. If the name was dropped and picked back up, that counter restarted at zero. So we read the name the way you read a core sample, one layer per year.

example.com

2026

2019

2004

Below 2019, the layers run hollow: the name existed, under a different registration. A registry record goes no further back than the one running now.

Per the registry: 7 years
Claimed by the site: 22 years

The registry dates this name to 2019, so 7 years. The footer claims 22. The record cannot settle it: it holds the current registration and nothing before it.

Three sample cases, on the domain names reserved for documentation.

What the date proves

A domain's age is not a site's age.

A name can sit unused for ten years without a page online, then host a brand-new site the week after. Nothing in the registry record tells those two apart.

Reading the result

The age sits at the top because that is the question people type. The six fields under it are the record itself, and they are what tells you whether the age means anything.

An age and a creation date: The registry publishes a registration event. The age above it is that date counted out in days, then rounded into years and months so you can read it. It dates the current registration, not the first time anyone ever owned the name.
Under a year: About the only thing an age really proves. A domain a few weeks old has no history behind it. That is normal for a new project, and worth a second look when the name is sending email on behalf of a company that claims to be decades old.
No creation date published: Some registries keep the creation date out of their public service, or publish only an updated date. The tool says so instead. An age worked out from web archives or from a certificate date would be a reconstruction, not registry data.
An unusual domain status: When the registry publishes clientHold, redemptionPeriod or pendingDelete, the status matters more than the age. A fifteen-year-old domain sitting in a redemption period needs renewing today, and nothing else about it is interesting until it is.
Domain not found: The registry has no record of this name. Either nobody has registered it, or its extension does not answer publicly. Either way, no answer is not an age of zero.

The four misreadings

No number in a WHOIS record gets stretched further than the creation date. Here are the four claims it keeps getting used for.

Reading the domain's age as the site's age
What causes it: A name can sit unused for ten years without a page online, then host a brand-new site the week after. Nothing in the registry record separates those two.
What fixes it: If the question is how long the site has been around, the creation date will not answer it. Web archives will, so will the date on the first certificate, and so will the owner.
Paying up for an aged domain
What causes it: The idea that an old domain carries search-ranking capital. Google says outright that domain age is not a ranking factor, and a name that was deleted and registered again gets a fresh creation date — so the seniority on display may cover nothing at all.
What fixes it: Price a used domain on what you can check: the links pointing at it, what it published over the years, the absence of a bad past. Not on the year in the record.
Mixing up the creation date and the updated date
What causes it: The two sit next to each other in a WHOIS record, and the second one moves on every renewal, every name-server change, every contact update.
What fixes it: This tool keeps them on two separate lines. An updated date says somebody touched the domain record. It never says anybody touched the site.
Reading age as proof the domain is well looked after
What causes it: Age is reassuring. It says nothing about the transfer lock, the expiration date, who actually holds the record, or the contact address on it — which is often a former agency's.
What fixes it: Read the domain status and the registrar under the age. A twenty-year-old domain with no transfer lock is more exposed than a locked six-month-old one.

What age proves, and what it is wrongly made to say

Every row is a field this tool shows you. The last column is what people routinely conclude from it, and where that falls down.

The data	What it says	What it doesn't say
Creation date	The day the current registration started at the registry.	Not when the first site went up, not who owned it first, not whether ownership ever broke.
Updated date	Something on the domain record changed: a renewal, the name servers, a contact, a lock.	That the site changed. A site rebuilt from the ground up leaves the domain record alone.
Expiration date	The day the registry cuts the name off if nobody renews.	That a renewal is lined up. Auto-renew shows up nowhere in this record.
Registrar	Which registrar holds the name today.	Who owns it. Since the GDPR, registries usually hide an individual holder.
Name servers	Which servers answer for the zone today, which often points at the host.	Who controls the domain. Whoever has the account can change name servers in five minutes.
Domain status	The locks and the procedures under way, in the EPP vocabulary registries share.	The state of the site. A domain marked ok can be carrying a site that has been down a month.

The dates a registry can publish

RDAP files every date under an event name. This tool shows three of them. The rest turn up depending on the registry, and knowing they exist is what keeps you from reading one as another.

RDAP event	Usual WHOIS field	What it marks
registration	Creation Date	The start of the current registration. This is the date the age is counted from.
reregistration	—	The name was registered again after being deleted. This is the tell of a domain that was dropped and picked back up.
last changed	Updated Date	The last edit to the record. It moves when the site does not.
expiration	Registry Expiry Date	The registry's own cut-off date.
transfer	—	The last time the name changed registrar.
deletion	—	The name being deleted, when the registry publishes it.
locked / unlocked	—	A lock being set or lifted.

No registry has to publish all of these. A missing event does not mean the thing it records never happened.

Frequently asked questions

Does domain age affect search rankings?

Google says publicly that it does not: domain age is not a ranking factor. What gets mistaken for age is the links and the content an older site has had the time to pile up — and you check those with something other than a date.

Does transferring a domain reset its creation date?

No. Moving between registrars does not touch the creation date, and neither does a change of owner. What resets it is a deletion followed by a fresh registration — at that point the name really is new as far as the registry is concerned.

Why doesn't the date match what my registrar shows?

Because they are not measuring the same thing. The registry publishes the registration date. Your registrar's dashboard often shows a billing or contract date instead, and a reseller adds one more shift on top. For anything to do with expiration, the registry date is the one that decides.

What's the difference between WHOIS and RDAP?

RDAP returns the same facts as JSON: a fixed schema, real access control, dates in a standard format. Classic WHOIS returns free text that looks different at every registry. ICANN requires RDAP of the registries and registrars on generic extensions, and RDAP is what this page queries.

Why do some domains show no creation date?

Because their registry chooses not to publish it. That is a policy, not a fault. The field then reads not published — an empty field beats a date somebody reconstructed.

Can I see who owns a domain in WHOIS?

Rarely, and this page does not show it. Since the GDPR took effect, registries redact an individual holder's contact details from public answers. What is left on view: the registrar, the name servers, the domain status and the dates.

The question that keeps coming back

Does a domain's age count for search rankings?

No.

Google says publicly that domain age is not a ranking factor. What gets mistaken for age is the links and the content an older site has had the time to pile up — and you check those with something other than a date.

What to look at instead

The links pointing to it

A name that was deleted and registered again gets a fresh creation date, so the seniority on display may cover nothing at all. Links you can count.

The history of its content

If the question is how long the site has been around, the creation date will not answer it. Web archives will.

The absence of a shady past

That is what you go through before buying a used domain, and it is what sets the price. Not the year in the record.

A twenty-year-old domain with no transfer lock is more exposed than a six-month-old one that is locked.

Age is reassuring. It says nothing about the lock, the expiration date, or the contact address on the record — which is often a former agency's.