DomainTools API Guide: Whois Lookup

The DomainTools API is organized into distinct products with queries that follow a REST-ful URL structure wherever possible. Each product offers free, un-authenticated access for the sample URLs listed with each product. If you haven't already, you may want to review the getting started document to learn about authentication and response formats.

The Whois Lookup API provides the ownership record for a domain name or IP address with basic registration details. The API is optimized to respond quickly and is designed to handle a high volume of parallel requests. This is the ideal product to use if you have a busy web site or a long list of domains that you need to process.

  http://api.domaintools.com/v1/domaintools.com/whois/
	

The response includes the most recent Whois record we have for the domain name or IP address you provided in the URL. This ensures a consistently fast response without a dependency on external servers and usually returns a record updated within the last few days. You can use the date property in the whois response node to check the age of the record and confirm it was updated recently enough for your needs.

In rare cases, you may request a domain for which no recent Whois record is available. If that occurs, the system will respond with an error.

Live Whois

The default Whois lookup will provide a record that is sufficiently up-to-date for nearly all domain names you request. Most of our partners find the speed and accuracy of the service a perfect match for their business needs. Occasionally, we encounter a use case where a partner needs a Whois record for a specific domain name that is more current than that returned by our default Whois lookup. Examples may include domain names that were just updated or registered within the last 24-48 hours, or domain names in certain less-common top-level domains. The Live Whois Lookup provides a way to obtain these records.

The Live Whois API provides the same data as the Whois API, and in the same format, but instead of using a recent record it performs a live lookup on the registrar's Whois server. This has the advantage of returning the most up-to-date record, but the response times will be much longer (5-10 seconds) and the cost to use the service will be significantly higher.

Important: Access to the Live Whois API requires special approval from our Client Services team.

  http://api.domaintools.com/v1/domaintools.com/whois/live/
	

You should always request a recent Whois record before you request a live Whois record. If no recent record is available, or the date on the recent record is outside your preferred update window, you can perform a second request to the Live Whois API. Or, if you are performing a batch process, you can send several parallel requests to the Recent Whois API and queue certain domains for a subsequent serial lookup to the Live Whois API.