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Domain Whois Lookups
The information in this article very important for any one who uses software that performs whois lookups. Please make sure that you understand this fully.

Because of the large number of Whois lookups that are being done most registrars have set limits on how the whois servers could be accessed. It is very important that these terms and conditions are understood and followed whenever you use a software that performs whois lookups.

Unfortunately there is no uniform set of rules followed by each registrar. Each and every registrar has their own set of rules (and some times these are not even mentioned any where)

Problems with too many unrestricted lookups
If you do too many whois lookups you will soon start seeing outputs similar to the following:

Welcome to the NSI Registrar Whois Server.

Your IP address is contained within a list of IP addresses that may have failed to abide by Network Solutions' Whois policy.

If you feel this is in error, please contact us at ....

Here are some examples of the limits set by different domain registrars. Please note that these are just a few examples. Almost all registrars have similar limits in place.

Tucows (whois.opensrs.net) rejects multiple simultaneous connections from the same IP. You will have to be satisfied with one connection at a time.

BulkRegister (whois.bulkregiter.net) will immediately block the IP temporarily if they notice a large number of connections being made. This is done by their software automatically.

Network Solutions (whois.networksolutions.com) will block the IP temporarily if you do more than 1000 lookups in a day.

Go Daddy (whois.godaddy.com) will simply start hiding all the relevant information from the returned whois text if your IP gets in their list.
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Nominet has a new whois usage policy effective from December 13 2005. If you find that you are unable to check the status of your UK domains the reason could be this.





Whois Abuse
Please note that Nominet is very careful about people trying to mine their database. Some times entire IP blocks get blocked whenever a suspected data mining activity takes place. Most times the people affected are within the United Kingdom (probably because these attempts are made by some one within UK).

...most other registrars also have similar restrictions.


If you find your IP address being banned permanently, the only solution is to contact the registrar and discuss the problem with them.

If your internet connection has a permanent IP, you should be very careful while using any software that connects to whois servers. Make sure that your IP doesn't find its way into the registrar ban lists because of excessive usage. If you ever find your IP banned give them a call and explain your situation. Find out what got you banned and assure them that you will follow their whois policy usage guidelines.
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Thanks to our friends at Softnik.com for this info.