Domain History: 5 Ways To Check Before Registering
As Indira Gandhi said, history is the best teacher, but it often has the worst students. We tend to overlook the past’s impact and dismiss it as something that doesn’t influence our present and future. But it does—and to a great extent!
This principle holds true in domain history. A domain's past, including its previous owners and activities, can significantly influence your website's performance, traffic, and search engine rankings, potentially impacting your brand or business in both positive and negative ways. Thoroughly investigating a domain's history before acquisition can save you a lot of headaches down the road and position your website for success.
In this article, we will explore the types of information available through domain history research, outline various methods for conducting this research, and highlight key aspects to consider. Let's dive in!
What is domain ownership history?
Domain ownership history tracks and collects all the recorded domain name information, from the time it was first registered to the expiration day. Depending on the tool you’re using, you can get various data about a certain domain name and prevent potential problems or drops in the online reputation of your business.
As it probably wouldn’t be wise to buy a used car before checking the service history, it also wouldn’t be wise to buy a domain before checking its ownership history. A domain previously under a Google ban or the one full of spammy content can decrease your rank or authority without you knowing why - in that case, no quality content or number of backlinks can help.
Using some tools can help you do all the research you’ll need about a certain domain. You just have to choose the one that gives data on what you want to know. For example, WHOIS history can tell you when the domain name was registered, updated and when it expires, but it won’t show how a domain was used in the past. For that, you could use another tool, such as Wayback Machine, but we’ll talk about various tools and their uses in the next section, so continue reading to find out more.
How to check domain history
WHOIS domain history check
WHOIS - probably the most well-known domain checker - allows you to track information about any domain completely free.
Using WHOIS is simple - all you have to do is type in the domain name or IP address into the search bar and press enter. Once the system crawls its database, you’ll get to check:
- Current website information - domain name, WHOIS server, URL
- Important dates - registration, update and expiration dates
- Ownership details
- DNS records
Here’s the information you can get for dynadot.com:
The data you can see in the WHOIS search is the most important public information that’s important to know before buying a domain. However, it doesn’t provide you with more details on previous owners or activities, so if you’re about to invest in a premium domain, it might be wise to choose one of the alternative ways to check domain history we listed below. Even though some of them aren’t free, they could be worth your buck in the long run.
Alternative ways to check domain history
DomainTools
DomainTools is one of the premium tools for domain history checking. To get all the information this tool offers, you have to be a member, and the membership costs $99 per month or $995 per year. Although some might find it a bit pricey, read on to see what you actually get for this money.
DomainTools gives you a complete and detailed history of a domain with the most important statistics included. Some of the data provided is WHOIS history, WHOIS records, hosting history, screenshot history, and all (if any) domains that share an IP address or name server.
If you’re not a member, you’ll get a glimpse into the stats. Here’s what we got for dynadot.com:
DomainTools also provides a report that you can download as PDF for a one-time price of $49. This report tells you everything there’s to know about a domain - WHOIS records, DNS events, name server, registrar and IP address changes, and so much more. It’s usually very long (2000 pages or more), but you can get a free sample to see if you’d find this useful.
Internet Wayback Machine
Imagine being a time traveler but in the domain world - that’s what Wayback Machine offers. With Wayback Machine, you’ll get an insight into all the websites that were built on a domain from the moment it was registered.
Once you search for a domain, you’ll get a calendar for the span of years that domain was active for. Then, by choosing a year and a specific date, you can see a snapshot of what the website on that domain looked like on that day.
For example, we searched for dynadot.com and went back to February 11th 2009.
Here’s the snapshot of the website on that day:
Those of you born before the 2000s probably feel nostalgic after seeing this. But, the purpose of this tool is whether or not a domain was used in the past, and if it was, then what was it used for. This can provide you valuable information as you can avoid purchasing a domain that had malicious activities or spammy content in the past.
Norton Safe Web
Norton Safe Web was created by Norton Security to make the Internet a more safe space. Safe Web focuses on tracking any malware and security issues connected to a domain. This is the best tool to check if the domain you’re interested in is safe before purchasing it.
Safe Web is quite straightforward and provides a simple response. Here’s what we the one we got for checking dynadot.com:
People talk, especially when they’re not satisfied with something, but once they share those words online, they’re there forever. You can easily find what people said about a domain you want to get by simply googling it. If a domain has spammy or unsafe past activities, it will probably be mentioned in reviews, forums, blog posts or comment sections. Scroll through the web and check what are the impressions of a domain to avoid any unpleasant surprises in the future.
What are the benefits of checking the history of a domain?
Learn about domain’s past uses and owners
Domain owner history can help you find out if the previous owners kept the domain spam-free and clean. This is a very important step that you should do before buying a domain, especially if investing a large sum of money.
Your main goal should be to answer these questions:
- Did the domain have one or more owners?
- What was the main purpose of the domain?
- Did they publish spammy content?
What tools to use to get this information?
WHOIS tool can tell you the basic information about a domain, like names of servers, registration and expiration dates, or registrants email address to contact them if needed.
Wayback Machine gives you a look of what the owner published on the website, what its purpose was and if there were any spams.Gather information on your competition
Domain history can reveal a lot of information on your competitors, such as:
- How long has the domain been around?
- Did it have previous owners?
- What was it used for?
- How much is the domain worth?
The answers to these questions can help you get insights into the value of a specific domain and, to some extent, business behind it. From that point, you can organize your marketing initiatives by considering the strengths and weaknesses of your main competitors.
What tools to use to get this information?
Domain tools can give you answers to many questions with its extensive and detailed report. You’ll be able to spot any changes that occurred, like change of ownership, or see any connected domains.
There are many online tools for evaluating domains, like Price Check Domains, that can give you an estimation of a domain name’s worth.
Ensure security
Uncover scams, spams and frauds before deciding on doing business with a company or purchasing a domain. If you wonder what a company's business practices are or want to see what a domain was associated with, there’s no better way then to use one of the methods listed in the next section to check the history of the domain.
What tools to use to get this information?
Norton Safe Web is the best tool to check if the domain is secure or not. It’ll give you a simple and straightforward answer based on its extensive and thorough research.
Domain history & what to look out for?
Google’s ban
Google’s ban policy states that any domains associated with spam, malware or phishing schemes are to be suspended from showing ads. So, if you happen to purchase a domain that’s under this ban, you wouldn’t be allowed to publish any ads on your website and potentially earn money through marketing.
It’s easy to check whether a domain is under Google’s ban. All you need to do is use the Google Safe Browsing Tool, where you type in the domain you want to check, just like we did for Dynadot:
Spam or malware
If a domain previously hosted spammy or malicious websites and if it was blacklisted by Google, it could be a challenge to have it removed from their database. This would result in your emails being flagged as spams or even in your website being blocked by a security software.
There are several tools you could use, one of them being Spamhaus. If the domain you searched for isn’t flagged, like dynadot.com is, you’ll see this message:
Blacklisted on ISPs
Some ISPs block domains that they find unsafe, decreasing the traffic and visibility of those domains. Check whether your potentially new or current domain is blacklisted with this tool - MxToolbox Blacklist Check.
Abuse history
A domain with an abuse history wouldn’t be the best choice if you’re trying to build a valuable online presence. What counts as an abuse is sending spam emails, hosting phishing websites or engaging in other malicious activities.
To check if your domain has a history of abuse, go to AbuseIPDB Domain Checker and type in your domain name or IP address. If there are no issues, you’ll get the message that the IP address wasn’t found in the database.
Previous owner
The domain’s online reputation continues living even when the owner changes, and if the previous owner did something criminal or fraudulent, like cybercrime, using that domain, it could reflect poorly on you as well. That’s why make sure to get the information on the previous owner before buying a domain.
You can do it easily by using DomainTools Whois Lookup.
Final Thoughts
Knowledge is power and gathering as much information as possible gives you an upper hand. Learning about a domain's history and checking its past uses and owners can help you avoid buying a domain name that can potentially harm your online reputation.
So, consider using one of the tools from this article and create your business online on a safe and secure domain name. Build a solid foundation and set yourself up for success!
FAQ
What is domain history?
Domain history, or domain ownership history, is a record of the domain’s past owners, uses, activity status, registration and expiration dates, changes in IP address, DNS events and similar information. Domain history allows you to see what you’re buying before finalizing the purchase, so that you know for sure the domain you’re getting is secure, without spams, Google bans or abuse history.
How can I check my domain history for free?
There are various tools you can use to check domain history and many of them are free. The most popular one is probably WHOIS checker, but there are others that are also discussed in this article, such as Wayback Machine and Norton Safe Web. They offer useful public information on domain history, like expiration and registration dates, or past uses, but for more detailed information, you’d have to use a paid tool.
How do I find my domain history?
Finding your domain history is fairly simple:
- choose one of the tools given in this article (WHOIS, DomainTools, or other)
- type in your domain name
- press search
The information you get depends on the tool you choose, but most of the tools give you data on past owners and uses, registration and expiration dates, and overall security of the domain.
How do I track domain history?
The simplest and most secure way to track domain history is to use WHOIS database. WHOIS can provide you with the historical record of the relevant information about a domain, its past uses and owners. You can also use Safe Web to check if the domain is secure, or Wayback Machine to see what websites were built in the past on that domain.
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