WHOIS explained
WHOIS actually means "Who is?" and reads the same. It's a useful utility for looking up information on any domain name.
Historically, WHOIS is one of the oldest terms of the Internet. It's a crucial set of data for businesses (e.g. ISPs), individuals (e.g. webmasters) and even governments, so no wonder it is one of the most searched database in the world, also one of the most detailed.
WHOIS search results provide helpful information surrounding a particular domain name. It may include personal or business information about domain name ownership, registration and expiration dates, nameservers, status information, etc. It may also include contact information such as physical address, phone number and email address.
Technically WHOIS is a protocol used to update and find information about domain names, IP addresses and some other Internet resources. This means WHOIS services operate through WHOIS servers - databases that store records of registered users or assignees of Internet resources in a human-readable format.
Anyone can connect to a WHOIS server to send a query, the server will then respond to this query. The most common usage of WHOIS is for finding information about domain names - that's generally meant by various terms, such as "whois search", "whois lookup" or "whois query".
How to perform a WHOIS search
You don't need to have any software installed on your PC, there are many websites that will allow you to perform a WHOIS lookup, for example whois lookup
Yet, if you're a Linux or Mac user, or if you have purchased your own Linux-based VPS or Dedicated Server - it's easy to retrieve any WHOIS record you need. Use the following command in shell: