[reversing_drive]

How do i find out which company has issued a certiain domain?

for example www.bonkers.com was sold to Fred, by [some company].
Is there an administrative website (verisign?) which tells you what [some company] sold (more correctly "leased") www.bonkers.com to Fred?

Because companies such as (here in Australia) Netregistry, Webtrader ect... sell domain names, which if you don't pay the monthly/yearly fee or whatever, they take it of you. So really they own it 8) , not you , they leased it right? ;(

Well my problem is i bought a domain (with redirection) with one company then years later bought webhosting from another company which required a domain name, so i used my first one.
The thing is i'm paying domain name keeping costs to both companies, but surely only one can own it, not both.

So i want to check with i don't know where, but thats why i'm asking, is there a website/service which tells which company is isued with a particular domain name?

Cheers,

[Silver-Dagger]

Try this URL
http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois

[BladeRunner]

Ah, this actually confuses some people.
The place where your domain was first registered is who you will keep paying money to until you decide to release the domain.
It doesn't matter who you are using as a web site host, the company which first sold you the domain will be the company collecting your yearly fee's.
There is no way around this as far as I know, at work we have a few dormant domains, however we are now using a totally different company to host our sites.
However the initial registrar is the company who take our renewal fee's.

If somebody stops paying the fee's the domain shouldn't revert back to the original registrar as such.
It becomes a free domain, but it takes ages for the domain authorities to clean them up and mark them as available domain names again.
They have to go through certain procedures, attempting to contact the domain administrators and checking that they don't want to continue.
A year or so ago www.shopping.co.uk became "detagged" and it took a further six months before naybody could re-register it.

[reversing_drive]

Thanks Silver-Dagger That is exactly what i was looking for, really appreciated

BladeRunner, Thanks, what i found was pretty much what your saying, i can be confusing i admitt. Seems a little stupid that you can't transfer your domain name registration to different companies, especially when some have higher prices than others, also what i found that since it was a fairly long time ago now, the same company doesn't sell the package which it did back then, consequently the new equivalent package is cheaper. It is also a hassle when trying to get support, they ask what package your on and you say this, and they say ohh... ;(

Cheers,

[BladeRunner]

I think I may have given you a little bit of flase information.
Mainly because I've been playing around with domains, hosts and the like today and I think I have some further information for you

OK, when you registered your domain in the first place, one of two things happened.
1. The domain is yours, it is in your name, you are listed as the administrative contact, it is yours to do with whatever you like for as long as you continue to pay the fee's - Most likely
2. The company you registered the domain with kept ownership of your domain, they are listed as the administrative contact - Less likely, but certainly possible.

Now, when you first registered your domain it was probably a little on the expensive side, costs have been reduced by a lot over recent years.
Of course the company you originally registered with will continue to charge you what they always have done, they make it look like you have no choice, but as long as you own the domain this is not true.

Firstly you can ask your current hosts to change the IPTag on the domain, transfer it to another company and it will then be their responsability to charge you the yearly fees on the domain - choose the right company and your fees will be reduced greatly.
Now your current hsts probably don't want to let the domain go, they are making money out of you after all.
So, you can request that the new hosts more or less "take" the domain from the current hosts.
Now if they are listed as an administrative contact that isn't so easy as all they have to do is reject the transfer request.
However your new hosts can then get involved with the naming authorities on your behalf and get things moving.
If you are the administrative contact you will receive the e-mail saying "Do you wish this domain to be transfered?" to which you can simply reply "Yes" and you are on your way.

Your current hosts may have written something into their small print that says there will be a transfer fee should you wish to move the domain, not all companies do this, but some do, so you might want to check this out before you proceed.

For example, I'm currently in the process of moving some of our company domains to www.123-reg.co.uk
I've opened a free account with them, logged in and then listed the domains I wish to transfer in.
Now all I should need to do is sit back and allow the two hosts to fight it out, I'll await the e-mail asking if I wish to move and reply "Yes".
End result, all my fee's will now be paid through www.123-reg.co.uk at a greatly reduced price.

Hope this helps.