How to Find Domain Owner: 5 Simple Ways to Trace Website  

Key highlights   

• Learn how to identify a website owner using direct methods, such as contact pages and privacy policies.   
• Understand the role of WHOIS and domain registration history in tracing ownership details.   
• Discover how domain brokers can assist when contact details is unavailable or private.   
• Uncover alternative ways to locate owners through LinkedIn, search engines and email discovery tools such as Hunter.io.   
• Learn what to expect when domains are privately registered and how the GDPR may impact visibility.   

To create a website, you must first register a domain name. This unique web address links to records in the WHOIS database. These records include the IP address, registration data, domain registrar and other key details. Once registered, the domain’s details are stored in its WHOIS registration history. 

If you want to find the owner of domain records or learn how to find domain name owner details, there are several tools available. WHOIS lookup tools, email search tools and domain brokers are the most common. They give you access to stored WHOIS information and contact details of registered domain names.   

This guide will show you: 

• How to find the owner of a website 
• How to run a WHOIS Domain Lookup 
• How to access domain registration history 

Before we explore these tools, let’s clarify a common question, is the domain owner always the same as the website owner? 

Why might you want to find the owner of a website?   

The most common reason for learning how to find the owner of a website is wanting to purchase a domain. Let’s say you’re starting your own website and you do a URL availability search or a Bluehost.co.uk domain search, only to find that the domain you want is taken.    

You can find the owner of a domain or website and contact that person to see if they’re willing to sell you the domain.    

There are a few other reasons you might want to find the owner of a domain or website. Perhaps you wish to contact the website owner for another reason, such as having a question about their content or design.    

And finally, you may want to find the owner of a website if you suspect that the content or business is questionable.    

For whatever reason you choose, there are several strategies you can use to look up a website’s owner or domain registration history.   

Are the domain owner and the website owner the same?   

In most situations, the domain owner and the website owner are the same. But technically, that doesn’t have to be the case. So, who is the owner of a domain?   

• Businesses: A business website is part of a company which a partnership or corporation can own. However, domains are typically registered to a single individual. When a domain is registered, it will have several contacts listed for it. These are the Registrant, Admin, Technical and Billing roles. The Registrant contact is the legal owner of the domain.   
• Agency: If you hired an agency to build your website, someone on its staff might have registered the domain. If it’s not under your contact details, you wouldn’t be the website’s legal owner.   
• Domain registrars: Domain registration services retain ownership of your domain. If they charge you for managing your domain, such as updating MX or A records, then that’s a good sign that you don’t legally own your domain.    

However, if you find the domain owner, it will be easy to get to the website owner and vice versa.   

Let’s look at five proven ways to find out who owns a website.   

How to find the owner of a domain or website?  

1. Search the website    
2. Check domain registration history   
3. Contact a domain brokerage   
4. Use search engines or social media   
5. Find an email associated with the domain   

1. Search the website   

To find the owner of a domain, start by visiting the website. The website itself can be a valuable source of information.    

If the domain has been registered but the website is not live yet, skip to step two and review the domain registration history.   

However, if there is a website, here are some places to look to find a website owner:    

• Contact us page   
• About us page   
• Website footer   
• Privacy policy   

Depending on the website owner, they may make their contact details accessible. Professional resume websites often have contact details and so do sales websites.   

However, if the website owner doesn’t list any contact details on the Contact Us or About Us page, there are a couple of other places to look.   

First, scroll down to the website footer. This is where you can find out who owns the copyright and sometimes, you can find out which agency created the website. Either of these can help you find the website owner.    

Finally, you can check the privacy policy page. If a website collects any user information, it’s legally required under the UK GDPR to have a privacy policy.    

How does the privacy policy page help you?    

The privacy policy should include contact details for addressing privacy issues. It often includes the email address or physical address of the individual who owns the website’s data.    

If you can’t find contact details on any other page, give the privacy policy a look.   

2. Domain registration history   

Unfortunately, doing an availability search such as a WordPress domain search or Instant Domain Search can only tell you if a domain name is taken or not. It won’t tell you who owns it.    

This lookup tool provides access to WHOIS records, including nameserver information, registration dates and the assigned names under ICANN (The Internet Corporation manages domain name registration and ownership for Assigned Names and Numbers). 

Note: GDPR laws may prevent full WHOIS details from being visible, depending on registrar policies. 

Domain registration history is also known as WHOIS history because it collects all WHOIS records associated with a domain, starting with the first registration.   

Think about domain registration history like old library cards that showed who borrowed a book. Each book contained a list of all the people who had checked it out before. It’s similar for domain names, except everything is online.    

The Internet Corporation manages domain name registration and ownership for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). As part of ICANN domain registration, it requires the creation of WHOIS records, which identify domain owners and provide their contact information.   

The good news is that WHOIS database records are made publicly available. ICANN legally requires that this contact detail is shared, subject to GDPR and UK data protection laws. So, this is one of the most accurate ways to find domain name owner details and access publicly available WHOIS records.   

To find a website owner using domain registration history, you’ll need to perform a WHOIS lookup search. 

• Go to https://whois.icann.org/   
• Enter the domain name you’re searching for   
• Click Lookup   

If the domain is registered, then you’ll find the contact details there.   

The domain ownership history will help you find domain name owner details such as administrative contact or registrar information.   

However, some domain provider services offer private protection. This means that the domain provider is listed as the registrant so that the individual owner can maintain some level of anonymity.    

If there is no contact details section and the registrar’s information doesn’t have an email or a phone number listed, then the domain has likely been registered privately for GDPR or UK privacy compliance.    

Some privacy protection services hide personal details such as telephone number or mailing address, but you can often uncover basic contact or IP address info.   

You can also find out when the domain is set to expire. If the domain registrant doesn’t have automatic renewal, there’s a chance the domain will be available after the expiration date passes.   

Doing an expired domain search helps you find newly available domain names.   

3. Check with a domain broker   

If your domain registration history search didn’t yield any results, you might be able to get information from a domain broker. Domain brokers are individuals who facilitate the sale of a domain name.   

Some brokers work on behalf of domain buyers and their services include finding domain owners as part of the buying and selling process. However, you can also explore domain auctions if the perfect domain or your desired domain name is listed for resale.    

We only recommend using a domain broker if you ultimately want to buy the domain that you’re researching.    

You can use a list of domain brokers (e.g. Bluehost, Namecheap), including UK-based services, to find the right one for you.   

4. Search engines and social media   

Another place to find information is through internet detective work. If a business owns a website, you can research employees on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.    

To find a domain owner, you want to look for someone in the IT or marketing department. These individuals are the people most likely to be involved with managing the website.    

If you want to search for a specific job title on LinkedIn, you can use the advanced search filters. First, search for the business page and then click See all employees on the header section.    

Then, you can click on All Filters on the search results page.    

In the field labelled Title, you can enter departmental keywords like marketing or IT. You can also try job-specific keywords such as webmaster or administrator.   

Finding the right person might take some trial and error.   

Once you find the right person, try contacting them directly via social media or LinkedIn. Otherwise, you can use a search engine or sales tool to see if they have contact details listed online.   

5. Finding an email associated with the domain   

When domain registration history and social media fail, you can use the domain to look for a contact email. When someone registers a domain, they’re also able to create email addresses with that domain name.    

For example, instead of [email protected], you can have [email protected].    

If your domain owner used the domain to create a contact email, you can look this up with online tools.    

Hunter.io is a sales prospecting tool that helps find contact details based on a domain URL. Simply enter the domain you’re searching for and it’ll provide a list of associated emails.    

Services like Hunter.io guess the email address format and then send an email to see if it bounces back.    

These tools may reveal information linked to registered users, allowing access to ownership history and additional information about the current owner of the domain.    

This service isn’t going to have every email available. In general, it works better with business domains rather than personal domains.    

If you can find an email address, you now have someone you can contact to enquire about the domain owner.   

Final thoughts   

There are several reasons you might want to find the owner of a website. The good news is that domain registration history is public but may be redacted under GDPR and UK privacy laws.   

However, domain providers have recognised that some of their customers want to remain private or anonymous. So, finding a website owner isn’t always straightforward. With a little bit of digging and detective work, you should be able to find the owner of a domain or uncover valid contact details.    

Keep in mind that just because you find the domain owner does not mean you’ll be able to buy the domain. It’s always best to brainstorm multiple domain name ideas for your business. Knowing how to find the owner of a domain is useful when researching ownership, verifying authenticity or initiating a potential purchase 

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