Domain availability checker that reads the registry, not a cache
This domain availability checker puts one question to the registry that holds the record: is there a registration for this name. It returns free, taken, or a plain admission that the lookup did not complete, and it never rounds the third answer down to the first.
| Protocol | RDAP, the structured successor to WHOIS |
| Source | The registry operating the extension, queried directly |
| Answers | Free, taken, or lookup failed. Never a guess |
| Bulk | Up to 500 names in one run on Studio and above |
No card to create the account. The tool below runs without one.
Run it on a brief like yours
The example below is already running against the real registry. Replace it with your own line and the model takes over from the local generator.
Availability is checked live against the registry. Your naming brief stays yours.
| Brief | Worked example, 91 characters |
| Style | Brandable, checking .com |
| Registry | RDAP, one live lookup per row |
| Progress | Starting the example 0 of 5 checked, free to register |
A worked example, running on the brief in the field opposite. Write your own and the names come from the model instead of the fallback generator.
The example brief is being turned into names. Each one is then looked up against the registry that holds the record, and the verdict lands on the row.
On this page
- 01 What a checker is actually asking
- 02 Three outcomes, and why the third one matters
- 03 Checking a list you already have
Every plan is paid and starts at $39 a month. The tool above runs without an account.
What a checker is actually asking
Availability has exactly one authority: the registry that operates the extension. For .com and .net that is Verisign. A checker that consults anything else, a nightly export, a zone file from last week, a wordlist of names somebody once saw, is telling you about the past.
We ask through RDAP, which returns structured data rather than a paragraph of text that has to be parsed hopefully. The question is narrow on purpose: is there a registration record for this name right now. Not whether it once existed, not whether somebody parked it, not whether a registrar would like to sell you something adjacent.
And we go to the registry rather than through a public redirector. Redirectors rate limit per address, and a rate limited query comes back as a failure, which a careless tool then paints as a real answer. Seven rows checked through a redirector will regularly show two perfectly ordinary names as unavailable for no reason at all.
Three outcomes, and why the third one matters
Free means the registry has no record, so the name can be registered at the standard yearly fee for that extension. Taken means a record exists and the name is held by someone. Those two are what every checker shows.
The third outcome is that the lookup did not complete. Registries throttle, time out and occasionally go quiet, and when that happens this checker says so on the row. It is the least impressive thing on the page and it is the reason the other two answers are worth anything.
The cost of getting that wrong is real. A shortlist presented to a client where one name is quietly wrong is worse than a shorter shortlist, because the error surfaces in the room, in front of the person paying you.
Checking a list you already have
Plenty of naming work starts with candidates rather than a brief. A workshop produced forty, a founder has been sitting on six, an investor sent over a spreadsheet. Pasting them in one at a time is the grunt work that eats an afternoon.
Bulk checking takes the list in one run, up to five hundred names at a time on Studio and above, and returns a table with the verdict and the timestamp on every row. You can then filter to what survived and take that into the next meeting.
If you want ideas as well as answers, the domain name finder generates candidates from a brief and checks those, which is the same machinery pointed at a different starting point.
Teams clearing several hundred candidates at once run them in bulk rather than a row at a time, which is the difference between an afternoon and a coffee break.
Questions people ask first
The rest are on the FAQ, and the mechanics are in how it works.
A registrar search is accurate and it is also a shop. When the name is gone it steers you to a worse extension or a marketplace listing, because that is how it makes money. This checker answers the question and stops, and when the .com is taken it says the .com is taken.
Yes. The console on this page runs live lookups without an account. Bulk runs and saved lists need a plan, because each row is a real query against a registry rather than a lookup in a table we already had.
It means nobody has registered it. It says nothing about trademarks, and a registered trademark can stop you using a name whose domain is wide open. Treat the availability answer as the first gate and a trademark search as the one that follows it.
Because the registry did not answer in time, usually throttling. We show that as itself. Re-running the row a few seconds later almost always returns a real verdict.
Close to this one
Three pages that answer the neighbouring question, each with the console seeded for its own kind of business.
A domain name finder is only useful if what it finds is still available. This one generates candidates from a line about your business and puts every single one to the registry through RDAP before it reaches your screen, so the list you read is a list you can act on.
Type a name, switch the extension, and watch the range move. That movement is the useful part: it shows you what the model actually rewards, which is short, sayable and on the .com.
For a website, the name and the domain are the same decision. This generator treats them that way: nothing reaches the list unless the registry says it is free.
Write one line and see what survives the check.
Every name that comes back free has been looked up against the registry that holds the record. Nothing on the shortlist is already gone.
No card to create the account. Your brief stays yours.