Why did my Whois History lookup return no results?

Whois History provides a list of historical Whois records that DomainTools has collected for a domain. If Whois History does not return any results for a given domain, that indicates that the domain has never been registered, and DomainTools has no available records for it. If you believe that a domain which returns no matching results is an error, please contact our support team with details on the domain.

Upcoming Changes to DomainTools Whois History API

We are planning to enhance the DomainTools Whois History API endpoint in order to help you tailor your searches, retrieve large historical recordsets, and allow you to consume the relevant historical records for your investigations.
Listed below are some of the key changes, along with their benefits, and how you can adopt these changes.
Introducing ‘Pagination’ in API response
Benefit
Whois History API returns unique historical whois records for a queried domain. And, with years of collecting data, our historical dataset has grown significantly. For certain domain queries, there are too many associated historical records to return efficiently and your queries may fail. Pagination will address such scenarios and allow you to retrieve data consistently.
Solution
Each page will limit the number of records and users can page through API responses to retrieve all records associated with the domain without encountering timeout issues.
– An existing API user who wants to retrieve all records must update their existing program to page through the API responses using the pagination functionality.
– Else you will continue to receive a subset of the entire history which will be displayed on the first page of the API response.
New Parameter for the API
Benefit
Depending upon your investigation scenario, at times you may need to look at the oldest historical record, while sometimes the most recent changes will add the most context. Our goal is to allow you to retrieve the data most relevant to your use case.
Solution
With the new sort parameter, you will have the flexibility of pulling records that are appropriate for your use case.
– This will be an optional parameter and when unspecified, the API will extract the newest records first with older records at the end. By switching this flag, you can request older records first as well.
Change Overview
We are targeting to release these enhancements on Feb 4, 2021. We will confirm once the changes are released or communicate any changes to our plans.
Please let us know if you have any feedback, follow up questions, or would like to discuss this further with us.

How do I get access to Whois History?

Whois History is available to DomainTools Personal and Enterprise members; see the Domain Research Pricing page for details. If you don’t have access to Whois History, consider starting a membership to explore this powerful tool.

Whois History has a new look. Does it have all the same features?

The January 2014 update to Whois History changes the layout considerably to help present the most significant information efficiently. While the display is different, all existing functions are retained and some new functions added, including:
– Filtering
– View Changes in Whois records
– Screenshot thumbnails
– Download and Permalink controls in the Whois record display
The new layout allows you to navigate forward and backward through time, while always seeing the Whois record for the date selected on the timeline.
For in-depth guidance on Whois History, please see the User Guide or our tutorial video.

What is Whois History?

Whois History is a powerful investigative tool, allowing you to “look back in time” to spot
significant changes in the ownership, hosting, registration, and other information about the
domain. It is one of the premium tools available to DomainTools subscription members.
DomainTools has been tracking the Whois history of millions of domains since the early 2000’s, with
some records dating back to their inception in the 1990’s. Advantages of the Domain History tool
include:
– Trademark and Copyright disputes can be resolved by viewing Whois History to see who owned the
domain at the time of the infringement.
– Domain transfers can be seen in detail to see who the previous owners of that domain were.
– Phishing and fraud sites can be shut down by contacting previous owners or viewing contact
information before it was privatized.

How do I use Whois History?

The Whois History page consists of three main sections: the lookup and filter controls, the
timeline, and the Whois record itself, with links to DomainTools Whois and Reverse Whois searches.
– Use the lookup box to initiate a domain history investigation. Use the filter control to search
the records for those containing a specific search string (examples include email addresses,
registrant names, or physical addresses).
– Use the timeline to explore the history of the domain. Dates that represent changes in the Whois
record are prominently displayed. You can launch a view that shows direct before/after comparisons of
records that have changed.
– Use the Whois record display to view the record itself, and to launch other tools such as Whois
and Reverse Whois.
For in-depth guidance on Whois History, please see the User Guide or our
tutorial video.

How do I get to Whois History?

Whois History is located in the Profile section of Research.DomainTools.com.