Domain Age Checker

Check domain registration age and dates using RDAP protocol.

What does Domain Age Checker do?

Domain Age Checker retrieves domain registration data using the RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol) -- the modern, structured replacement for WHOIS. It returns the registration date, expiration date, registrar, nameservers, domain status, and calculates the domain age in both days and years. Supports .com, .net, .org, .io, .dev, .app, and many other TLDs.

Use it for domain research, SEO analysis, fraud detection, competitive intelligence, or any workflow that needs to know how long a domain has been registered. The structured JSON output makes it easy to filter, sort, and analyze domain age data at scale.

Who is it for?

• 🔍 SEO specialists — evaluating domain age as a ranking and authority signal when auditing backlink profiles or vetting link prospects
• 🛡️ Fraud investigators — flagging newly registered domains associated with phishing, spam, or impersonation campaigns
• 🏢 Domain investors — assessing domain value based on registration history and expiration timing before making purchase decisions
• 📊 Brand protection teams — detecting suspicious lookalike domains registered recently and monitoring for cybersquatting
• 📋 Compliance analysts — verifying domain registration longevity as part of vendor and partner due diligence
• 🔬 Competitive researchers — determining when competitors registered their domains and tracking new market entrants

Why use Domain Age Checker?

• Modern RDAP protocol — uses the structured RDAP API instead of legacy WHOIS text parsing, providing more reliable results
• Age calculation built in — returns age in both days and years, so you do not need to calculate it yourself
• Expiration tracking — see when a domain expires to catch upcoming renewals or acquisition opportunities
• Batch processing — check hundreds of domains in a single run
• Broad TLD support — works with .com, .net, .org, .io, .dev, .app, and many other top-level domains
• Pay-per-event pricing — costs scale with actual usage, just $0.001 per domain checked
• Structured JSON output — parsed fields ready for filtering, sorting, and integration with downstream tools

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
domains	string[]	Yes	—	List of domains to check age for. Enter bare domain names (e.g., google.com).

Example input

{
    "domains": [
        "google.com",
        "github.com",
        "example.com"
    ]
}

Output example

Each domain produces one result object with age calculations, registration and expiration dates, registrar information, nameservers, and status codes.

Field	Description
domain	The queried domain name
ageDays	Domain age in days since registration
ageYears	Domain age in years (decimal)
registrationDate	Original registration date (ISO 8601)
expirationDate	Expiration date (ISO 8601)
registrar	Registrar name
nameservers	Authoritative name servers
status	Domain status codes
error	Error message if lookup failed
checkedAt	ISO timestamp of the check

{
    "domain": "google.com",
    "ageDays": 9862,
    "ageYears": 27.0,
    "registrationDate": "1997-09-15T04:00:00Z",
    "expirationDate": "2028-09-14T04:00:00Z",
    "registrar": "MarkMonitor Inc.",
    "nameservers": ["ns1.google.com", "ns2.google.com"],
    "status": ["client delete prohibited", "client transfer prohibited"],
    "error": null,
    "checkedAt": "2026-03-01T12:00:00.000Z"
}

How to check domain age

1. Go to Domain Age Checker on Apify Store
2. Enter one or more domain names (e.g., google.com, github.com)
3. Click Start and wait for the run to finish
4. Review registration date, expiration date, age in days/years, and registrar for each domain
5. Download your results as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab

How much does it cost to check domain age?

Domain Age Checker uses Apify's pay-per-event pricing:

Event	Price	Description
Start	$0.035	One-time per run
Domain checked	$0.001	Per domain checked

Examples:

• 10 domains: $0.035 + 10 x $0.001 = $0.045
• 100 domains: $0.035 + 100 x $0.001 = $0.135
• 1,000 domains: $0.035 + 1,000 x $0.001 = $1.035

Using the Apify API

The Apify API lets you control Domain Age Checker programmatically. Schedule runs, read datasets, manage webhooks, and more. See the Apify API reference for details.

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/domain-age-checker').call({
    domains: ['google.com', 'github.com'],
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('<YOUR_API_TOKEN>')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/domain-age-checker').call(run_input={
    'domains': ['google.com', 'github.com'],
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~domain-age-checker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"domains": ["google.com", "github.com"]}'

Use with AI agents via MCP

Domain Age Checker is available as a tool for AI assistants via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Setup for Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/domain-age-checker"

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/domain-age-checker"
        }
    }
}

Example prompts

• "How old is the domain example.com?"
• "Check domain ages for these competitor websites"
• "Find the registration and expiration dates for these 10 domains"

Learn more in the Apify MCP documentation.

Integrations

Connect Domain Age Checker with other apps and services using Apify integrations:

• Google Sheets — automatically push domain age results to a spreadsheet for collaborative analysis, historical tracking, and sorting by registration date
• Zapier / Make (Integromat) — trigger a domain age check whenever a new lead enters your CRM, then enrich the lead record with domain age and registrar data
• Slack — schedule weekly runs on a watchlist of domains and receive alerts when any domain is within 30 days of expiration
• n8n — build self-hosted workflows that combine domain age data with WHOIS lookups and DNS checks for comprehensive domain intelligence reports
• Webhooks — receive HTTP POST notifications when a run completes, enabling custom integrations with fraud detection systems, SEO dashboards, or domain monitoring platforms

Tips and best practices

• Use for lead qualification — domain age is a useful signal for determining whether a business is established or newly created
• Combine with WHOIS Lookup — if you need registrant contact info in addition to age, use WHOIS Lookup for the full picture
• Schedule periodic checks — set up weekly runs to monitor expiration dates across your domain portfolio and catch renewals early
• Filter by age in downstream tools — export to Google Sheets or a database and filter for domains older or newer than a threshold
• Check TLD support — while most common TLDs are supported, some country-code TLDs may not have RDAP servers; the error field will indicate when a lookup fails
• Export and sort by age — download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel and sort by ageDays to quickly identify the oldest or newest domains in your list

Legality

This tool analyzes publicly accessible web content. Automated analysis of public web resources is standard practice in SEO and web development. Always respect robots.txt directives and rate limits when analyzing third-party websites. For personal data processing, ensure compliance with applicable privacy regulations.

FAQ

What is the difference between RDAP and WHOIS? RDAP is the modern replacement for WHOIS. It returns structured JSON data instead of unformatted text, making it more reliable for automated processing. Domain Age Checker uses RDAP for accuracy and consistency.

What happens if a domain is not found? If the domain does not exist or the TLD has no RDAP server, the result will include an error field explaining the failure. Other domains in the batch are not affected.

Can I check domain age for country-code TLDs like .uk or .de? Support depends on whether the TLD registry provides an RDAP endpoint. Most major TLDs are supported, but some country-code TLDs may not be available yet.

How accurate is the age calculation? The age is calculated from the registration date returned by the RDAP server to the time of the check. It is as accurate as the data provided by the domain registry. The ageDays field is an integer count of days, and ageYears is a decimal for convenience.

Does the actor show when a domain will expire? Yes. The expirationDate field contains the expiry date as an ISO 8601 timestamp. You can use this to track upcoming renewals or identify domains that may become available for registration after they expire.

The actor returned an error for a .de (or other ccTLD) domain. Why? Domain Age Checker uses the RDAP protocol, which requires the TLD registry to operate an RDAP server. Some country-code TLDs (e.g., certain .de, .cn, or .ru domains) do not yet support RDAP. For those TLDs, use the WHOIS Lookup actor instead, which queries traditional WHOIS servers.

The registration date seems wrong or different from what another tool shows. Why? RDAP returns the date from the registry, which may reflect the original creation date or the most recent transfer. Some registries reset the creation date on domain transfers. If you need the full history, check the raw WHOIS text via the WHOIS Lookup actor.

How to check domain age in bulk

Checking domain age one at a time through manual WHOIS lookups is impractical when you have dozens or hundreds of domains to evaluate. Domain Age Checker processes your entire list in a single run, returning structured results you can sort, filter, and export.

To bulk-check domain ages:

1. Collect your domains into a list — from a spreadsheet, a backlink audit export, a lead database, or a competitor research file
2. Paste them into the domains input field (one per line or as a JSON array)
3. Start the run and get a structured report with registration date, expiration date, age in days/years, and registrar for every domain
4. Download results as CSV or Excel and sort by ageDays to quickly rank domains from oldest to newest

For recurring checks — such as monitoring a portfolio of domains for upcoming expirations — use Apify Schedules to automate weekly or monthly runs. Combine with the Google Sheets integration to maintain a live dashboard of domain ages across your watchlist.

At $0.001 per domain, checking 1,000 domains costs just over $1 — far cheaper than manual WHOIS lookups or subscription-based domain research tools.

How to verify domain age for fraud detection

Domain age is one of the strongest signals for identifying potentially fraudulent websites. Phishing sites, scam storefronts, and impersonation domains are almost always newly registered — typically days or weeks old rather than months or years.

Here is how to use domain age as part of a fraud detection workflow:

1. Collect suspicious domains — from reported phishing emails, ad campaigns, affiliate links, or customer complaints
2. Run Domain Age Checker on the list to get each domain's registration date and age
3. Flag domains under 90 days old — these are high-risk. Legitimate businesses rarely operate on brand-new domains
4. Cross-reference with other signals — combine domain age with WHOIS registrar data (privacy-protected registrations on new domains are a red flag), SSL certificate age, and website content analysis
5. Automate the pipeline — use Apify Schedules and webhooks to check new domains daily and push flagged results to your security team's Slack channel or incident management system

Domain age alone does not prove fraud, but it is a reliable triage filter. A domain registered yesterday that claims to be an established bank or retailer deserves immediate investigation. Pair Domain Age Checker with WHOIS Lookup for full registrant details and SSL Certificate Checker for certificate validation.

Other DNS and domain tools

• DNS Lookup — Look up all DNS record types for any domain
• DNS Propagation Checker — Check DNS propagation across global resolvers
• DMARC Record Checker — Check DMARC email authentication policies
• SPF Record Checker — Check SPF records for email sender authorization
• MX Record Checker — Check MX records for mail server configuration
• TXT Record Checker — Look up TXT records for any domain
• AAAA Record Checker — Check IPv6 AAAA records
• CNAME Record Checker — Check CNAME alias records
• NS Record Checker — Check authoritative name servers
• SSL Certificate Checker — Check SSL/TLS certificate details
• WHOIS Lookup — Look up domain registration details
• Domain Availability Checker — Check if domains are available for registration