How to use WHOIS: a guide for .au domain ownership

If you want to discover who owns a domain - then learning how to use WHOIS is the answer. Whether you’re looking to make a domain purchase, checking copyright data, or just feeling curious, using WHOIS is an easy way to get the information you’re after.

Here we’ll guide you through everything from basic searches to advanced tips, giving you the tools you need to read results and deal with private registrations. 

What is WHOIS?

Simply put, WHOIS (pronounced “who is”) is a directory of domain names and registration information, similar to a business directory that allows you to see who a business is registered to. 

When you register a domain you need to provide certain information, which gets added to the WHOIS database. This typically includes things like the registrant’s name, contact information and some technical information about how the domain is set up. But, this information is not always available for everyone to see. For some domain extensions, like a .com or .net, you can choose to hide your details with domain privacy protection (which we offer for free!). 

Below you can see the information available with WHOIS.

Here in Australia, the .au domain WHOIS is governed by auDA (the .au Domain Authority), the industry self-regulatory body for the domain space. 

How to do a WHOIS lookup

Once you know where to look, finding out who owns a domain is easy. Here we’ll break down the process, from a basic search to using more advanced techniques, including how to read the results.

To do a basic .au WHOIS lookup, head to the official auDA WHOIS site and enter the domain you want to know more about. Don’t forget to include the full domain extension - e.g. .au, .com.au, .org.au, etc.

The results you’ll get should look something like these ones for our site.

OK, we know this looks like a lot of information and it might feel a bit overwhelming but each section serves a purpose in identifying and verifying the ownership of the domain. Let’s break it down.

The table below explains some of the different user sections you might see in your results and why you might need to use them.

You might not see every one of these sections in your results and there are some different reasons for this, which we will cover in our troubleshooting section.

Domain information

This is the top section of the results from auDA. Here you can see the registered name of the domain and the domain registration ID. Some other WHOIS lookup sites will give more information here, like the date the domain was registered, a registration expiration date if it's not renewed, and the date the domain was created. 

Registrar information

This section of the results tells you about the entity that manages the domain’s registration, including their name, website and ‘abuse’ contact information for reporting any suspicious activity associated with the domain. 

Registrant contact

Here you’ll find the registered owner information for the domain. This can be an individual, company or organisation and the information usually includes a name, address and contact details. 

Private WHOIS records

Some websites use a domain privacy option (which limits how much information you see when doing a WHOIS lookup). Private registrations are becoming more common now as domain owners try to avoid unwanted contact but that doesn’t mean you’ve come to the end of your search. 

While some .au domain owners may use a privacy service to hide some of their details there will instead be proxy information. While this can make it more tricky to contact the owner of the domain it doesn’t make it impossible, instead, you’ll have to take a less direct route. Your first port of call should be to try to make contact through the website’s direct contact method, like a contact form or email address. If this isn’t possible or you don’t get a response then you can try contacting the domain owner through the registrar’s proxy. If you take this route you should make sure you state your legitimate purpose clearly.

If you need to contact the domain owner urgently, for legal reasons or if you have a dispute or copyright claim you can contact the auDA complaints and disputes department. 

Advanced WHOIS techniques

While a basic lookup will usually give you most of the information you need, there might be times you’ll want to use more advanced tools. 

Bulk WHOIS searches

Bulk searches are normally used for things like market research or managing multiple domains. As the name suggests, this type of lookup lets you pull the ownership information, registration and expiration dates for multiple domains at once.

WHOIS monitoring

This allows you to set up alerts for updates to things like contact information or ownership transfers, this can be especially useful for keeping your domains secure and under your control.

WHOIS troubleshooting

A WHOIS search can sometimes return incomplete results, there can be a couple of reasons for this, as you can see below.

If you’re regularly doing WHOIS lookups for specific domains, saving dated, timestamped copies of the results can be a good idea. This will allow you to easily see when information changes or becomes incomplete.

Understanding privacy compliance

In Australia, there are rules to protect your privacy when it comes to domain names. These help to balance the need for transparency with the right to keep your personal information private. Detailed information about your right to privacy can be found in the Privacy Act 1988 but here’s a quick overview:

• Businesses usually need to be transparent: Companies are generally required to make their contact information available.

• Technical details remain public: Information about the technical aspects of domain names is usually public.

• Privacy protection: There are rules in place to help protect the privacy of individuals, particularly in older records.

These rules help ensure a balance between transparency and privacy in the Australian domain name system.

Want to learn more about .au domain names? You can check out the auDA website, which has lots of useful information.