Find the age and expiry date of a domain name

How to use the tool

Enter a domain name, with or without “www” and even as a full address, then click “Check”. The tool finds the registry for the extension, reads the domain’s public record and shows a summary first: the age calculated from the creation date, the days before expiry, the registrar and the DNSSEC state. Below, the table of dates, the list of status codes with their meaning and the name servers.

When the deadline falls within 30 days the line turns into an alert, as it does when the date has already passed. The 30-day threshold is the tool’s own: no source sets it. When an extension does not publish a date, the tool says so instead of guessing it.

Where the data comes from: RDAP

RDAP is the protocol that replaces WHOIS. According to ICANN, it delivers information comparable to WHOIS, but in standardised query and response formats, and it allows the authoritative server to be discovered.⁵ Since 28 January 2025, generic-extension registries and registrars are no longer required to provide WHOIS, except for .com, .name and .post.⁵

The tool works in two steps. It first reads the IANA file that maps each extension to the address of its RDAP server: the client looks up the extension, then appends “domain/” and the name to the registry’s base address.³ The file, which points for example to rdap.nic.fr for .fr, is kept for 24 hours on the server.⁴ The request follows the format described in RFC 9082, where internationalised names are accepted in Unicode or punycode form.²

What the dates mean

RFC 9083 defines the events of a record. Creation is the first registration of the domain; expiration is the predetermined date on which the object is deleted; last changed is the date of the last change to the record’s information; transfer marks the move from one registrar to another.¹ A domain that was deleted and registered again can carry a re-registration event.¹

The age shown is calculated by the tool from the creation date, in whole years, months and days. It measures the seniority of the current registration. It says nothing about the age of the website that uses it, the date it first went online or its history. The “Registry data refreshed” date shows how fresh the record is and signals no change to the domain.

EPP status codes explained

Status codes describe the operations allowed on the domain. ICANN details them on its EPP codes page.⁶ Those that start with “client” are set by the registrar, those that start with “server” by the registry. A domain locked at its registrar carries clientTransferProhibited, which blocks transfer to another registrar, often together with clientDeleteProhibited and clientUpdateProhibited, which protect against deletion and change.⁶

Other codes deserve a look. clientHold and serverHold take the domain out of the DNS: it stops resolving. redemptionPeriod signals a requested deletion, with a restoration period of 30 days according to ICANN, and pendingDelete comes before the name is released.⁶ An RDAP record writes these values with spaces (“client transfer prohibited”), the EPP list runs them together (“clientTransferProhibited”): the tool matches them. It explains the most common codes and displays a code it does not know as it is.¹

Personal data and the registrar

RDAP records often mask the holders’ identity. RFC 9083 provides statuses for this (removed, obscured, private) and allows an empty contact name when it is redacted.¹ For individuals under .fr, AFNIC already announced in 2007 that their personal data remain protected and confidential.⁹

The tool displays no contact details, even when a registry publishes them. It keeps only the registrar’s name and IANA identifier, two pieces of company information, and the name servers, which are public by nature. No domain name entered is stored on the server.

Does domain age matter for SEO?

Google has no published position on domain age in its documentation, but John Mueller has spoken about it. In the Search Engine Journal article of 11 December 2023, asked whether the age of a domain name affects rankings, he answers that it is mostly people who want to sell aged domains who say so. The same article quotes an earlier message in which he wrote that domain age helps nothing.⁷

An old domain therefore does not rank better for that reason alone. Age remains useful for another reading: before buying a second-hand domain, it tells you whether the name has lived before. Google’s spam policy also treats buying an expired domain to publish low-value content and benefit from its past as abuse. It does not mention domain age in that section.⁸

What the tool sees, and what it does not

The tool has no fallback on an undocumented WHOIS. If the extension is not in the IANA RDAP file, it says so: when the file was read, .de, .io and .ch were not in it. Some registries publish a record without dates: the tool then writes that the date is not published.

Without a list of public suffixes, the registrable name is looked up in two attempts: three labels first (www.example.co.uk gives example.co.uk), then two (www.example.com gives example.com after a not-found result). A name under a four-label suffix will not be found. The tool accepts 20 checks per 10-minute window and per visitor, and reads one domain at a time.

After the diagnosis

Knowing that a domain is old or that it expires soon does not replace a technical check. If you change domain, the redirect checker confirms that the old address points to the new one, and the HTTP headers analyser shows what the server sends on the new name. A domain purchase or a migration is prepared with a method, a topic I cover in the SEO support I provide to my clients.

Frequently asked questions