WHOIS and RDAP Explained: What Domain Registration Data Is Public

Every registered domain has associated registration data held by its registrar: who registered it, when, when it is due to expire, which nameservers it currently points at, and its current status codes. This information exists because domain registration is fundamentally a matter of public record, similar in spirit to property or business registration, rather than something inherently private.

WHOIS is the original protocol for looking this information up, dating back decades, and it returns loosely formatted free text that differs in structure from one registry to the next, which makes it awkward for software to parse reliably. RDAP, the Registration Data Access Protocol, is the modern replacement, returning the same kind of information as clean, consistent, structured data instead. Frabs' WHOIS Lookup tool uses RDAP behind the scenes for exactly this reason, even though the result is still commonly referred to by the older, more familiar name.

Older WHOIS records often included a registrant's actual name, address and phone number in full, publicly, for anyone to look up. Privacy regulation, particularly the GDPR in Europe, along with the widespread adoption of privacy proxy services, has pushed most registrars toward redacting personal contact information by default. What typically remains visible today is the registrar's own name, the registration and expiry dates, the domain's current nameservers, and its status codes, while personal registrant detail is either withheld entirely or replaced with the privacy service's own contact details instead.

• clientTransferProhibited: the registrar has locked the domain against being transferred to a different registrar, usually a deliberate security measure rather than a problem.
• clientDeleteProhibited and clientUpdateProhibited: similar locks preventing accidental deletion or unauthorized changes to the domain's records.
• pendingDelete: the domain has passed through its full expiry and redemption window and is in the final process of being released back to the public.
• redemptionPeriod: a domain that recently expired and can still be reclaimed by its original owner, usually at a significant additional fee, before it moves on to pendingDelete.

Run a domain through the WHOIS Lookup tool to see its registrar, registration and expiry dates, and current nameservers directly. This is most useful for confirming exactly when a domain you own is due to expire, checking whether a domain someone else owns is actually available before you consider trying to acquire it, or ruling out an expired registration as the cause of a domain that has suddenly stopped resolving.