Check when a domain was registered, when it expires, and its registrar.
A domain's age is the time since it was first registered. It is a small but genuinely useful signal: brand-new domains are disproportionately associated with scams and throwaway campaigns, while a domain registered many years ago and continuously renewed suggests something more established.
Enter a domain above to see its registration date, age and expiry.
Age is evidence, not proof. A domain registered last week is worth more scrutiny before you send money to it. A domain registered in 2004 has been paid for every year since, which is a cost no casual scammer bothers with.
But old domains are bought and repurposed all the time. An aged domain can change hands and become something entirely unrelated to what it was, and the registration date will not reflect that. Treat age as one input alongside the registrar, the name servers and what the site actually does.
The idea that age is a direct ranking factor is one of the more persistent SEO myths. Google has repeatedly said that registration date is not itself a ranking signal, and it is easy to see why: registering a domain requires nothing but a payment, so it would be trivial to manipulate.
What genuinely correlates is everything age tends to come with. A domain that has existed for a decade has usually accumulated links, published content, and built a track record that a new site has not. The advantage is real, but it comes from what was done during those years, not from the date in the WHOIS record.
The expiry date shows when the current registration term ends. A long runway — several years paid ahead — suggests an owner who intends to keep it. A date a few weeks away is worth noting if you are relying on that domain.
Expiry is not a cliff. Most top-level domains have a grace period during which the original owner can still renew, followed by a redemption period with a higher fee, and only then does the name return to general availability. The whole process typically runs to a couple of months, which is why a domain that looks expired is often not actually purchasable yet.
Enter it in the tool above. The registration date comes from the domain's WHOIS record, which records when the name was first registered, and the age is the time elapsed since.
Not directly. Google has stated that a domain's registration date is not a ranking factor. Older domains often do rank better, but because of the links and content accumulated over those years rather than the date itself.
The original creation date does not change when a domain is transferred between registrars or sold to a new owner. If a registration is allowed to lapse completely and the name is later registered again from scratch, a new creation date is set.
It usually stops resolving first, then enters a grace period where the owner can still renew normally, then a redemption period with a higher recovery fee. Only after that does it become available to register again. The full cycle commonly takes around two months.
Some registries publish less WHOIS data than others, and privacy rules including GDPR have reduced what is available for many domains. Country-code domains in particular vary widely in what they disclose.