Understanding a domain’s history is a competitive advantage that can illuminate rivals’ strategies and help you evaluate the risks and benefits of purchasing a domain name.
Here, learn how domain history works and how to use free WHOIS records and domain history lookup tools to your advantage.
What is domain history?
Domain history (sometimes called domain WHOIS history or domain ownership history) includes a list of a domain’s past owners, plus their addresses, contact information, and other registration details. However, sometimes domain owners use privacy services to hide this data.
Why look up domain history?
A domain name’s history offers details you can’t glean just by looking at a website.
Researching the competition
Reviewing your competitors’ domain and website history can tell you a site’s age and if it’s ever been sold, insights that can help you calculate its market value.
Use this information to formulate your own marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies while considering your competition’s strengths and weaknesses.
Buying an aftermarket domain
Maybe you want to buy a domain, but someone else owns the one you have in mind. Reviewing the domain’s WHOIS history can tell you about its reputation with search engines and email services, factors that affect a website’s discoverability and email marketing efforts.
Purchasing an existing website
Maybe you’re planning to buy a whole website. Its history can tell you how many times it’s been sold, how popular it is, and whether or not its users have had positive experiences.
Contacting the website’s owner
When you need to contact a website owner about purchasing their domain, a domain lookup may help you find them. (Although it’s important to know that domain owners and company owners aren’t necessarily the same people).
Ensuring security
Evaluating the history of a domain name can uncover scammers, spammers, and fraudsters. If you’re considering doing business with a company and have questions about their practices, review their domain to see if their website has been associated with scams or overzealous marketing.
How to perform a basic WHOIS lookup
A basic WHOIS lookup will only show you a domain’s current status, but it’s a helpful start. Here’s how to do one:
1. Find a WHOIS search service
You can quickly and easily look up ownership data on Shopify.
2. Type a domain name into the search field
See the screenshot below for an example lookup for manitobah.com, a Canadian Indigenous-designed footwear retailer.
3. Check out the results
The results show manitobah.com’s registrar, Namespro, and its creation and update dates.
How to find the WHOIS history of a domain
A WHOIS history lookup is similar to a basic lookup. Here’s the process:
1. Go to the site of your choice
There are multiple sites you can use to look up domain history. Here are a few:
- Try Tucows Domains and whoisrequest.com for simple searches
- Use Whoxy.com for advanced information
- Visit domainIQ for attractive, advanced reports (up to one lookup per day)
Other lookup services include:
2. Enter the domain name
Type the domain name you want to know about in the WHOIS search bar.
3. Review the information
The WHOIS tool will retrieve data stored on the WHOIS database. Use it to explore the history of the domain you’ve searched.
How to use Wayback Machine
Wayback Machine is a project from the Internet Archive. As you might have guessed, the Internet Archive is an attempt to archive literally everything on the web, including old versions of websites. It was designed to capture “snapshots” of entire websites at regular intervals.
Wayback Machine won’t show snapshots of every day a website existed, and some older websites won’t look right, but it remains the best visual record of the internet.
Use old versions of websites to find content that’s been taken down, including contact information that may still be valid. You can also use it to see if the domain has changed hands over the years.
For example, here’s what manitobah.com looked like at the time of writing:
And here’s what it looked like on November 18, 2018, the earliest available snapshot using Wayback Machine.
By comparing these and other pages generated by Wayback Machine, you’ll find the business has used the same domain since 2018 and its older version contains information unavailable—or at least harder to find—on the new site.
How to perform a Wayback Machine search
1. Go to archive.org
Specifically, go to web.archive.org to search the domain you want. You can also manually save pages and sites here to create a record.
2. Search for the domain
Type the domain you want to evaluate into the search bar.
3. Choose a snapshot
Once you select a snapshot date from the calendar, you’ll see an old version of the domain you’re interested in. You can explore what the old site looked like to find relevant information.
How to track domain renewal and historical data
Domains aren’t owned—they’re leased by domain registrars. Most registrars let you lock in multiyear contracts to secure ownership, but if you turn off auto renewal, the registrar can list your domain for sale.
The WHOIS database often shows changes to a domain’s ownership and registration date (including renewals). This is useful if you want to contact previous owners for their perspective on the domain’s history.
Take this WHOIS lookup for Gymshark.com, for example. Initially registered on September 16, 2011, the site was renewed on August 15, 2024, and its registration will expire on September 16, 2026, unless re-renewed.
Can domain history affect your site’s reputation?
Yes, a domain’s history affects its standing. Avoid domains associated with spam, Google penalties, or a previous owner’s bad reputation.
Suppose a domain’s former owner used the website to scam customers, which generated negative reviews warning visitors away and sketchy backlinks to other scam websites.
Buying this domain won’t clear its history. To do that, you’d need to invest time and effort into managing the site’s reputation and cleaning its backlink profile—a lengthy process you can avoid by buying a domain with a clean history.
“Probably the biggest thing to check is whether the domain was previously used for spam or something nefarious,” says independent UX/UI designer Dave Smyth. He also recommends checking the domain’s email reputation: “If it has a low reputation score or has been denied-listed, that can be incredibly difficult to reverse.”
Tips for checking a domain’s history
Short of hiring a dedicated researcher, there are a few easy and (mostly) free ways to analyze domain history:
Search it up
You’ll find plenty of information by Googling (or using your search engine of choice). If the domain has a significant past, you’ll likely find it mentioned in reviews, website comments, forums, and other online opinion-sharing platforms.
Check social media
You can also search for backlinks on social media sites like Bluesky or X to see what people think of it. Searching social media platforms directly will bring up user posts unavailable to search engines.
Ask around in relevant communities
Some industries and affinity groups are active on Slack and Discord. If the domain you want is part of a niche people like to talk about, searching these channels may teach you what peers and competitors think about it.
You can also use Discord or Slack to find in-person and virtual meetups, where you can directly ask what people think about the domain.
Search for the domain on Moz
Moz’s domain authority checker is a free tool that ranks domain names based on several metrics, including traffic, backlinks, and various SEO inputs. It generates two scores: domain authority and spam score.
Domain authority indicates how likely it is for a website to rank high on search engines based on the reputation of its content. The higher the score, the better. And spam score is exactly what you think it is—the lower the score, the better.
Check the website’s backlinks
Backlinks are links to a website found on other websites or platforms. When those other websites are relevant or have high authority scores, search engines will also treat the linked site as credible. However, generating too many links on spammy or scammy sites can negatively impact a website’s ranking.
Backlinks from social media can inform your marketing strategy by demonstrating what customers say about the company. You can also gauge a domain’s SEO potential by seeing how many top links come from search engines.
Two tools for viewing domain or subdomain backlinks are SEMRush and Ahrefs. (Note: Free versions of the tools limit the number of backlinks you can view in a day.)
Domain name history knowledge is power
Domain name history research takes time, but it yields helpful and important information—usually for free.
Even if you can’t find a domain owner’s contact information, you can assess a site’s popularity, content, and reputation.
That knowledge is useful whether you’re buying a domain for your business, researching your competitors, or seeking ideas to improve your website.
Read more
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- 10 Most Popular Domains
- How To Choose the Best Domain Name in 2024 (7 Tips & Tools)
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- How To Register a Domain Name in 5 Simple Steps
- Domain Price - How Much Does a Domain Really Cost?
- How to Buy a Domain Name- Domain Registration Guide
- What is DNS? A Complete Guide to How DNS Works
- What Is an SSL Certificate- Definition and Explanation
- Website Builder & Website Maker by Shopify
Check domain mistory FAQ
How can I check my domain history for free?
You can check your domain history for free using Shopify’s WHOIS domain lookup tool. Simply type in the domain you’d like to look up and click Search.
Can a bad domain history harm my SEO?
Search engines can penalize a website if it’s been associated with spam or violates their guidelines. Before buying a domain, check its history to ensure you’re not taking on SEO-hampering penalties.
How can I find out if a domain has been penalized?
Penalty indicator tools such as Semrush and SEO PowerSuite can tell you whether a domain has received a Google penalty.
Should you buy a domain with a rich history?
A domain with a rich history can be a good investment, provided that history is positive. Steer clear of websites associated with spam, penalized by Google, or with a low domain authority score.
Is domain age important?
New domains mean starting from scratch. Buying an older domain lets you piggyback on previous owners’ experience. Just ensure the domain history is clean and spam-free.
What is the difference between domain history and WHOIS?
WHOIS is a protocol most commonly used to find the registered users of a specific resource, usually a domain name. A WHOIS lookup will give you information about a domain’s current owner, whereas domain history is a record of current and previous owners.
