What is in a Whois record? (And how to keep yours private)

A typical Whois record contains everything needed to identify the registrant of a domain and reach them.

Standard Whois fields

• Domain name - the domain itself.
• Registry / registrar - which registry administers the TLD, and which registrar processed the registration.
• Registration date - when the domain was first registered (useful for assessing whether a website is established or new).
• Expiry date - when the current registration runs out.
• Last updated - when the record was last changed.
• Registrant contact - name, organisation, address, e-mail, phone.
• Administrative contact - usually the same as registrant.
• Technical contact - person responsible for DNS / nameserver changes.
• Nameservers - the authoritative DNS servers for the domain.
• Status codes - flags such as "transfer locked", "client hold", etc.

How to keep your details private

Three options, in order of cost:

1. Use your business address rather than your home address. Free. The Whois record will show the registered business address (which is already public information from the business registry).
2. Use a generic role-based e-mail like admin@yourdomain.co.za rather than your personal Gmail. Free, and the role e-mail keeps working even if a person leaves the company.
3. Subscribe to ID Protect (Whois privacy). The registrar replaces your contact details in the public Whois with a forwarding alias. Available for most gTLDs (.com, .net, .org, .cloud, etc.). Not available for .co.za because ZACR rules require the real registrant to be visible.

Register with ID Protect Add ID Protect to an existing domain

Why your Whois e-mail address must work

If your Whois e-mail bounces, the registry can suspend the domain (ICANN rule). Make a habit of checking once a year that the address still works - test by sending a message to it from another account.