WHOIS and RDAP: what your domain record actually tells you

Every registered domain has a public record, and it tells you more than most people realize. Learn to read it and you can spot an expiring domain, a pending transfer, or a misconfiguration before it becomes a problem.

What’s in the record

A domain’s WHOIS/RDAP record typically includes:

• Registrar — who the domain is registered through.
• Creation, updated, and expiry dates — when it was registered, last changed, and when it lapses.
• Status codes — machine-readable flags like clientTransferProhibited (a registrar lock) or pendingDelete.
• Nameservers — which DNS provider is authoritative.

The two most useful fields for staying out of trouble are the expiry date and the status codes.

Status codes are the early-warning system

Those EPP status codes look like noise, but they’re a real signal:

• clientTransferProhibited — a registrar lock is on (good — it prevents unauthorized transfers).
• pendingTransfer — a transfer is in progress. If you didn’t start it, investigate immediately.
• redemptionPeriod / pendingDelete — the domain has lapsed and is on its way off your account.

WHOIS vs RDAP

WHOIS is the old protocol: plain text, inconsistent formatting between registries, and being phased out. RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol) is its structured, JSON-based replacement — same data, machine-readable, and increasingly the authoritative source. Good tooling reads both and gives you a consistent answer.

Look up any domain’s record now with the WHOIS lookup tool, or check how long a domain has been registered with the domain age checker.