Domain WHOIS & DNS Lookup

Look up WHOIS registration data, DNS records, SSL certificates, and technology stack for any list of domains. Production-grade bulk domain research tool.

What It Does

For each domain you provide, this actor retrieves:

WHOIS Registration Data

• Registrar — who registered the domain (GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.)
• Registrant info — name, organization, email (when not privacy-protected)
• Dates — creation, expiration, last updated
• Nameservers — authoritative DNS servers
• Status codes — EPP status flags (clientTransferProhibited, etc.)
• DNSSEC — whether DNSSEC is enabled

DNS Records

• A records — IPv4 addresses
• AAAA records — IPv6 addresses
• MX records — mail servers with priority
• TXT records — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, domain verification tokens
• NS records — nameservers
• CNAME records — canonical name aliases
• SOA record — start of authority (primary NS, admin email, serial)

SSL Certificate Info

• Issuer — certificate authority (Let's Encrypt, DigiCert, etc.)
• Validity — not-before and not-after dates
• Subject Alternative Names — all domains covered by the cert
• Serial number

Technology Stack Detection

• Server — Apache, Nginx, LiteSpeed, IIS, etc.
• Framework/CMS — WordPress, Shopify, Next.js, Laravel, etc.
• CDN — Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS CloudFront, etc.
• Analytics — Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Hotjar, etc.

Use Cases

Lead Generation

Find domain owner contact info, identify businesses by their tech stack, and build targeted prospect lists. Filter by registration date to find new businesses.

Domain Investing

Check domain availability, find expiring domains, analyze registration patterns, and research domain history for valuation.

SEO Analysis

Discover a competitor's hosting setup, CDN configuration, mail providers, and DNS architecture. Check for proper SPF/DKIM/DMARC email authentication.

Competitive Intelligence

Detect what technology stack competitors use, identify their hosting providers, and monitor infrastructure changes.

Security Research

Audit DNS configurations, check DNSSEC deployment, verify SSL certificate validity, and identify potential misconfigurations.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
domains	string[]	required	List of domains to look up (bare domains, no protocol)
includeWhois	boolean	true	Fetch WHOIS/RDAP registration data
includeDns	boolean	true	Fetch DNS records via DNS-over-HTTPS
includeSSL	boolean	false	Fetch SSL certificate info from CT logs
includeTechStack	boolean	false	Detect technology stack via HTTP headers and HTML

Example Input

{
  "domains": ["google.com", "github.com", "shopify.com"],
  "includeWhois": true,
  "includeDns": true,
  "includeSSL": true,
  "includeTechStack": true
}

Output

Each domain produces one result object in the dataset:

{
  "domain": "example.com",
  "isRegistered": true,
  "lookupTimestamp": "2026-03-01T12:00:00.000Z",
  "whois": {
    "registrar": "Example Registrar, Inc.",
    "registrantName": "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY",
    "registrantOrg": "Example Corp",
    "registrantEmail": "admin@example.com",
    "creationDate": "1995-08-14T00:00:00Z",
    "expirationDate": "2027-08-13T00:00:00Z",
    "updatedDate": "2024-08-14T07:01:44Z",
    "nameservers": ["ns1.example.com", "ns2.example.com"],
    "status": ["clientTransferProhibited"],
    "dnssec": "unsigned"
  },
  "dns": {
    "aRecords": ["93.184.216.34"],
    "aaaaRecords": ["2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946"],
    "mxRecords": [{ "priority": 10, "exchange": "mail.example.com" }],
    "txtRecords": ["v=spf1 -all"],
    "nsRecords": ["ns1.example.com", "ns2.example.com"],
    "cnameRecords": [],
    "soaRecord": {
      "mname": "ns1.example.com",
      "rname": "admin.example.com",
      "serial": 2024081401
    }
  },
  "ssl": {
    "issuer": "DigiCert Inc",
    "validFrom": "2024-01-30T00:00:00Z",
    "validTo": "2025-03-01T23:59:59Z",
    "subjectAltNames": ["example.com", "www.example.com"],
    "serialNumber": "0F:BE:08:B0:85:48:..."
  },
  "techStack": {
    "server": "ECS (dcb/7F3B)",
    "framework": null,
    "cdn": "Edgecast",
    "analytics": []
  }
}

Pricing

$0.005 per domain looked up (pay-per-event).

• 100 domains = $0.50
• 1,000 domains = $5.00
• 10,000 domains = $50.00

Data Sources

This actor uses multiple free, public data sources for maximum reliability:

1. RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol) — the modern, structured replacement for WHOIS
2. who.is — web-based WHOIS lookup as fallback
3. whois.domaintools.com — additional WHOIS detail as secondary fallback
4. Google DNS-over-HTTPS — primary DNS resolver
5. Cloudflare DNS-over-HTTPS — fallback DNS resolver
6. crt.sh — Certificate Transparency log aggregator
7. Direct HTTP — for tech stack detection via headers and HTML analysis

Limits and Notes

• WHOIS data may be redacted due to privacy services (common since GDPR)
• DNS lookups are fast and reliable; WHOIS providers may rate-limit on large batches
• SSL data comes from Certificate Transparency logs and may lag by hours
• Tech stack detection is best-effort based on observable signals
• Domains are processed in parallel with built-in rate limiting
• The actor handles errors gracefully — failed lookups for one source do not block others

Integration — Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("sovereigntaylor/domain-whois-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchTerm": "domain whois",
    "maxResults": 50
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{item.get('title', item.get('name', 'N/A'))}")

Integration — JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('sovereigntaylor/domain-whois-scraper').call({
    searchTerm: 'domain whois',
    maxResults: 50
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach(item => console.log(item.title || item.name || 'N/A'));