What to do when you don’t know who your domain name registrar is

To put a new website live on the web, web designers need to update the technical records of the domain name that is going to be used on the website. This is so the domain name ‘points’ to the website. We generally do this by either changing what is called the A record or the DNS record.

It’s not uncommon for clients to realise they are not sure which company they registered the domain name with. This can happen for a number of reasons. They may have the domain name on auto-renewal, so the money just comes out and the domain keeps being renewed. Or, maybe someone who’s left the organisation registered the domain name, but didn’t leave any information about it, or the information has just been lost.

Here’s what to do:

Follow the money… you should be able to find a record in either your accounting system or bank records that shows a small payment for a domain name renewal or registration.

Do a ‘whois’ domain look up on your domain name:

Whois is a search you can make using a 3rd party system that can lookup domain name records. You can view domain registration details and ownership details, including the domain name registrar.

For New Zealand domain names, go to https://dnc.org.nz/whois/whois-lookup/

You can then see who the registrar of the domain name is. That’s the company you need to contact about getting access to your domain name.

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