How can you tell if a name has EVER been registered before?

[Intense]

Am trying to find out if a name we registered has EVER been registered before. We have checked with www.archive.org, but there is no history assocated to the name.

Can anyone offer some suggestions on how to verify is a name has EVER been regsitered?

Many thanks.

 

[unclewilco]

http://www.whois.sc/domain-explorer/

for the com/net/org/info/biz/us,
if there is a grey box then you know its was Deleted and Available again.
plus you can pay to get a history

is that what you are after? or iam I on the wrong wossname

regards
wilco

 

[Intense]

Looks like it. Thanks!

I see on another domain name we have the following line item
WHOIS HISTORY : 4 records stored

but nothing like that on the one I am looking into. Am therefore assuming it was never registered in the past.

 

[nRnF]

You may also try the archived versions of a web site.

 

[fcolor]

unclewilco is right whois.sc is a great source to check for domains, IP addresses and etc.

Regards
D.

 

[superprogrammer]

You can try looking at www.archive.org

 

[1rrr1]

http://www.whois.sc/domain-explorer/

for the com/net/org/info/biz/us,
if there is a grey box then you know its was Deleted and Available again.
plus you can pay to get a history

is that what you are after? or iam I on the wrong wossname

regards
wilco

i never realise that and i always use that site. LOL

 

[AdoptableDomains]

http://www.whois.sc/domain-explorer/

for the com/net/org/info/biz/us,
if there is a grey box then you know its was Deleted and Available again.
plus you can pay to get a history

There is a limitation to this, in that they only have a database going back about 2-3 years. Longer than that, it won't show.

Also, you can search the web (google, altavista, etc.) particularly the older search engines and directories for old links or references. search with quotes around the entire domain name with the .tld)

Also, search the usenet archives in google groups. someone may have used it for an email address in the past on their post.

 

[Intense]

Good Ideas!

Some really good ideas.... all so far have come up blank.... which is what I was looking for.

Many thanks to all

 

[MissFlora]

How to access usenet archives in google groups? Hehe.

Flora.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

How to access usenet archives in google groups? Hehe.

Flora.

Examples:

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=namepros.com&qt_s=Search+Groups

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q="miss+flora"&qt_s=Search+Groups

 

[RJ]

Whois.sc is an excellent resource for those domains registered in the past three years. Beyond that, another resource that keeps historical whois records is Dialog.com. They used to have a pay service available on their site. I've used it before to get results, but I cannot seem to find a link to that service on their present site.

Exody.com has some historical domain name lists on their sites going back several years.

 

[aww]

Dialog's interface is found here:
http://openaccess.dialog.com/ip/forms/PTCDomainNames.html

(via Domain Food - Resources - Whois/Website History )

 

[RJ]

That's the one. Thanks aww! A search there should return whether the name has been registered before or not.

 

[pimpdaddy]

archive.org is the best way to do this