Where is My Website Hosted?

Sometimes people hire a web developer or designer who takes care of their website. And then suddenly, they disappear or the business closes, leaving you with a website you have no idea how to manage.

The first thing to do is to find out where your website is hosted. To find this information, my favorite online tool is the Whois function from DomainTools.com. For instance, the whois record for TheWebHostingHero.com is found at http://whois.domaintools.com/thewebhostinghero.com

If you look at the Server Data section, you’ll see that TheWebHostingHero.com is hosted at FutureHosting.com (formerly known as FutureHosting.biz). Great we now found the web host!

So what about the domain name now?

Where is it registered? How do you change its nameservers?

Scroll down the same Domain Tools page, you’ll see the Whois Record for your domain. First of all, you’ll see the Registrant. This is where the domain name is registered. Sometimes this information is private so you’ll see something like “Domains by Proxy”.

Next you’ll see the Administrative and Technical Contacts. The Administrative Contact can manage every aspects of the domain name while the Technical Contact is only allowed to manage technical aspects such as changing nameservers.

Make sure the snail mail address of the Administrative Contact is yours. Otherwise, you are not really owning the domain name!

From there, you’ll be able to contact the domain’s registrant who will provide you with the information on how to manage your domain name.

Bookmark It