How do you view domain whois history?

Question

I know its possible to view the current whois information on a domain by doing:

whois example.com

However this is not what I need, I need to view the history of WHOIS for previous owners and other information.

Can you view WHOIS history? if so, how?

Why does it matter who has owned it? – Mike Ciffone Nov 24 '23 at 04:20 — Mike Ciffone, Nov 24 '23 at 04:20

score 11 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 02 '16 at 19:18

11

Domain Tools offer a whois history service and their records go back to the year 2000. I've never found another working whois history service (paid or free), and I've spent a while looking.

edited Mar 02 '16 at 19:18

Simon Hayter

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answered Jun 02 '11 at 10:18

Nick

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I award a 50 point bounty if you answer this question. Do you know any that go back further? Alternatively is there a way to contact the registrar? – William Oct 25 '21 at 17:05
@William don't know any that go back beyond 2000. A Whois lookup should show registrar information, which usually includes a URL or email where you can contact the registrar, for example: https://whois.domaintools.com/google.com. However, registrars do not generally share data about their customers or former customers. – Nick Oct 27 '21 at 07:07

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 23 '23 at 02:09

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You can try WHOIS History API. The API/service allows you to view domains ownership information from the past 10 years, backed by 10 billion WHOIS records, 300+ million active domains, 1 billion historic domains with thousands of TLDs tracked.

edited Nov 23 '23 at 02:09

Dave Powers

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answered Nov 18 '18 at 00:17

user5437

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which database this API uses? are there services that pull the same database in a readable form? – Suncatcher Jan 19 '23 at 20:58

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered May 03 '11 at 08:42

I'd suggest looking at the Wayback Machine. It stores old copies of many websites and if the domain you're interested in was archived there may be a contact page or headers telling you who owned or developed the site during a particular period.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered May 03 '11 at 07:55

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One off? Or in some sort of app?

Just search for domain whois, I use this website, just put the domain in: http://whois.domaintools.com/

answered May 03 '11 at 07:55

Dunhamzzz

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This service doesn't show the /historical/ information he's looking for, only the current. They have a separate paid service for the historical data, which is linked above. – Mark Stosberg Oct 16 '15 at 16:41

How do you view domain whois history?

4 Answers4

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