How can I find out who owns a web site?
Registrars maintain contact information for the owners of domain names, and make that information available to the public through WHOIS queries. A domain name, “ofzenandcomputing.com” for example, can be looked up through a WHOIS search. We previously covered how to find out who owns a domain name, but figured it was time to let you in on a few more methods of doing the lookup.
A typical WHOIS query will return the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses of one or more people who are designated as a contact person for that domain. You will often find listings for the registrant, administrative, technical, and billing contacts in the results of a domain name look up.
From time to time, you will encounter domains that hide the actual contact information of their registrants. Due to the fact that anyone can look up domain name contact information, the registrants often suffer from an influx of spam — bot the e-mail and telephone form. To combat the problem, domain registrars offer proxy services; they will fill in their own contact information, and pass along any valid messages to the actual registrant.
How to look up a domain name with Windows
Windows does not ship with its own WHOIS utility, however Phil Ottewell’s free WhoIs utility is an excellent download (web page, via Wikipedia). Download Phil’s file, unzip the contents, and run “Setup” to install the program. Once the installation wizard is done working its magic, the WhoIs client will appear in your programs menu.
How to look up a domain name in Mac OS X
Mac OS X features a WHOIS client right out of the box. If you want to find out who owns “yahoo.com”, open up the terminal, type “whois yahoo.com” (without the quotes), and hit Return.
For those who are unfamiliar with the terminal, it is a command line interface similar to a DOS prompt. Hit CMD+Space to bring up a Spotlight search, and search for “terminal”.
How to look up a domain name in Linux
I am sure I do not have to tell you this. But I will. Same drill as Mac OS X: bring up a command prompt and enter “whois example.com”.
How to look up a domain name on the Web
There are numerous web applications designed to look up the contact information associated with domain names. Most are offered by domain name registrars, who are of course looking to snag your business whenever you come across an unregistered domain. Here are a few: Dreamhost whois, GoDaddy Whois Search, Network Solutions Whois Search. The Open Directory Project maintains a list of web-based domain name lookup tools.
