Ask HN: How do I contact a domain name owner if the WHOIS says little?

7 points·pizza··5 comments

I want to buy a certain domain, but the owner isn't listed on the WHOIS and I have no way of contacting them. Help?

No emails listed in the WHOIS at all? Try webmaster@domain, postmaster@domain, and a few variations of those. Or dig into one of the "whois archive" web sites, maybe you'll find an earlier WHOIS record with owner info.

If it's worth that much to you, then you can go through a broker service like Sedo.com to get a bid in to the owner of the domain. Let them do the work of finding and contacting the owner.

I've used brokers several times and find it to be well worth their fees if they can make a deal happen. I believe Sedo charges $69USD, then 15% of the purchase price if they're successful.

I heard an interesting story the other day by the founders of Wedgies.com, they contacted the web hosting company that was hosting the landing page for the domain they wanted. The hosting company turned off the DNS, which made the buy contact them, and then passed the current contact info on to the buyer.

Yikes. I'd be fuming mad if my hosting company did that, even if it was just a landing page. One reason among many to keep your DNS and your hosting company separate.

a few ideas

1) search on social networks, if they (domain) have an account look at who they are following

2) search to see if it's a dedicated host, what other domains are on the server.. look at that whois and contact info

3) search google or way back time machine for old versions of the site (scroll to bottom to see if contact info)

4)pray the generic email works

5) register a diff tld (.ly .it .me .co etc)

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