The basics
Registry
A registry is the organisation that runs one top-level domain and keeps the master database of its names. Verisign is the registry for .com.
What Registry means in practice
Registrars sell names to the public, but the registry holds the authoritative record: which names exist, their nameservers and their status. It publishes the zone file that makes the names work on the internet.
The registry answers lookups about a name through rdap, which is how a tool can tell whether a name is registered at this moment.
Why it matters
When a name is shown as taken or free, the registry is the source of truth. A copy of its list is a snapshot and can be a day behind.
Try it
- Availability Checker Check up to 50 names at once: taken, available, or about to drop.
- Domain Health Check Expiry date, transfer lock, DNS, SPF and DMARC email security, and blocklists for a .com.
Related terms
- Registrar A registrar is a company accredited to sell domain names and manage them for you, such as GoDaddy or Namecheap. You register and renew a domain through one.
- Zone file A zone file is the registry's list of every domain in an extension that has nameservers, with those nameservers. The .com zone has well over 160 million names.
- RDAP RDAP, the Registration Data Access Protocol, is the standard way to look up whether a domain is registered and its status. It replaced WHOIS.