How to Find Out Website URL Owners

Knowing a web site's owner is a good security measure.

Finding a web site's URL owner is usually called a "whois" search, as in who is the owner of a particular site or domain. It is standard Internet protocol for contacting a domain database to inquiry a web site's history and owner. Knowing who owns a website is a good way to protect yourself against Internet scams, identity theft and viruses. A typical whois search will work with the most common domains including: .aero, .arpa, .biz, .cat, .com, .coop, .edu, .info, .int, .jobs, .mobi, .museum, .name, .net, .org, .pro, and .travel. There are websites that will search URL owners for a fee or you can visit one of the regional domain databases and conduct your own URL owner search.

Things You'll Need

• Computer
• Internet Connection

Instructions

Finding the Owner of a Web Site' s URL

1. Open your web browser and enter "http://www-whois.internic.net/cgi/whois" in the address box.

2. Click “Domain” and enter the website’s domain name into the box to search for the URL owner by the website’s name, such as: “Wikipedia.com.”

3. Click “Registrar” to search for a website’s history by using the owner’s name, such as: “GODADDY.COM, INC.”

4. Click “Nameserver” to search for a website’s URL owner by the site’s name server such as: “NS0.WIKIMEDIA.ORG” or through the website’s IP Address such as: “192.16.0.192.”

5. Click “Enter.” This will take you to a page that has the website’s owner’s name, history, and other information.

Tips & Warnings

• If the website is registered outside of the United States, you may have to search the regional whois databases. These include:

• RIPE NCC - http://whois.ripe.net

• APNIC - http://whois.apnic.net

• LACNIC - http://whois.lacnic.net

• AfriNIC - http://whois.afrinic.net