If you use DomainTools as much as I do, you have probably noticed that Whois searches on the platform return a “Service Unavailable” message. This service outage is impacting current Whois lookups as well as Historical Whois lookups.
DomainTools responded to an inquiry about the outage a little while ago via Twitter, telling attorney John Berryhill, “We are working around the clock with the provider to fix!” Several hours ago, the company tweeted that “ETA is a few hours out,” and it seems that the issue is still being addressed.
The company did share a tip to access Whois records, although I presume this doesn’t help with Historical Whois records:
@Berryhillj if you use your incognito window you'll be able to dig into 25 records- that is the best fix for now
— DomainTools (@DomainTools) August 20, 2015
Although there are plenty of alternatives for standard Whois lookups in a pinch, DomainTools is my primary source for Historical domain name lookups and other important domain name research for buying and selling domain names. This has put a temporary halt on some of my domain inquiries that required a historical Whois search. I am sure others are in the same position as me.
Hopefully the outage will be fixed very soon. When a reliable service like DomainTools sees downtime, it reminds me about how important it is and how reliant I am upon it. I will try to provide an update when I see that DomainTools is up and running again.
Update: Service appears to have been restored.
It must be account related, it works just fine currently.
DomainTools acknowledged the outage, and if you follow the Twitter thread, you can see it is impacting at least 3 different people in different parts of the country (including me).
Use gwhois.org as a great alternative.
Does it have Historical Whois data like DomainTools?
No but it performs live queries. DT often shows cached info.
Looks like DomainTools is working again.
@Elliot, do you mind sharing how historical domain name lookups and research benefit in buying and selling domain names?
I use historical Whois lookups for many reasons, including:
Confirm provenance
Get an alternative email or phone number when current info doesn’t work
Get info before privacy