GoDaddy should change how it calculates Whois lookups.
Now that GoDaddy has retired its old domain manager, some Domain Name Wire readers have asked how to download Whois counts for their domains.
It turns out that this feature is temporarily unavailable in the new domain manager but should return shortly.
This got me thinking: it would be great if GoDaddy improved its Whois counts during this upgrade process.
If you aren’t familiar with Whois counts, GoDaddy lets you see how many times someone (or something) did a Whois search for domains you own. This is one more metric that might help you value your domains.
Because .com operates on a thin Whois system, your registrar is pinged every time someone does a Whois search for the domain, regardless of where that search is performed. The registrar holds the contact information that Whois returns.
Previously, registrars returned Whois contact information whether a search took place on a web-based form or through Port 43. But GoDaddy no longer provides contact details on Port 43 lookups. This means that anyone doing a Port 43 lookup probably isn’t interested in getting your contract info to contact you. The only place to get your contact info is on the Whois search tool at GoDaddy.com.
With this in mind, going forward I think GoDaddy should only include Whois lookups that took place on the GoDaddy website. This will provide more accurate numbers and reduce the noise.
Additionally, it would be nice to get more data about who is conducting the search. Epik has the model to follow here.
Rob Monster says
With RDAP looming on the horizon and GDPR still an ongoing compliance headache in its own right, WHOIS data is going to be a moving target for a while.
For the time being, I agree Epik is probably still the benchmark for WHOIS lookup reporting. We do include port 43 but filter out known crawlers.
The WHOIS search counts are a predictive signal especially when it comes to renewal management where I find it extremely helpful as keep/drop criteria.
Finally, we do have a lab project called WHOQ.com that is looking at opt-in WHOIS for both conventional domains and blockchain domains.
teri says
I don’t think godaddy will ever add the whois data back. They have had over a year during beta to add it. Now it has been nearly 2 months since launch of the new manager and still no progress.
teri says
Still no whois at godaddy. I am guessing they don’t think they need to add it back. That was one of the main reasons for keeping domains at godaddy.
Andrew Allemann says
More on this in the podcast with Paul Nicks that goes live tomorrow.
Whois Domain Information says
I don’t understand the criteria followed by different domain registrars. Some TLDs offer free privacy by default, while others don’t, but in all cases, it’s possible to pay for it. I don’t really understand the reason behind this. Thank you very much