Even with Port 43 limits and GDPR, you can still download your Whois info from select registrars.
A lot of domain name investors use Watch My Domains Pro to manage their domain name portfolio. But as domain name registrars limit access to Whois in the GDPR era, it has become difficult for domain owners to download their own Whois data into the program.
There’s now a way to download all of your Whois data into the program without running into rate limits and other issues. It’s accomplished using registrar APIs. And before you dismiss this because you aren’t technical, I was able to set this up in 5 minutes with no technical skills.
Here’s the process:
1. Get your API key and secret from your registrar.
Watch My Domains currently supports ResellerClub, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Internet.bs and Dynadot. I got my GoDaddy API information by logging in and going to developer.godaddy.com/keys.
2. Input your API info in Watch My Domains.
Click on the API configuration icon and enter your info in the box that pops up.
3. Import your data.
The first step is to import your domains by clicking the Import button in Watch My Domains.
After downloading all of your domains you’ll be able to do Whois lookups on them that pull data through GoDaddy’s API rather than Port 43 (which doesn’t return valuable information).
Presto.
Been meaning to set this up, thank you for sharing this guide. bookmarked
So you are giving away the keys to the kingdom? That sounds like a good idea…
See Anil’s comment below. Another option (I believe) is to delete the key right after you download the data. You can always create a new key.
Andrew, thanks for the shoutout…
For people who are paranoid about providing the API keys to software, there is a way to do it without entering API keys in it. You will need to install an open source script on your website and you can keep the API keys on your server.
Please see the documentation (KB > Using Registrar APIs) for details.