Find age of a name?

[Daem0n]

A question that I have had for the longest time, is how do you know how old a domain really is (for this example, .com will suffice)?

Sometimes you can do a whois, but say that the domain has moved registrars, registrants and maybe even gone into the "redemption" period...how can you tell the age?

Also, what if a domain was dropped and then picked-up again a year later...is there any record anywhere of it originally being registered the year before (other than perhaps the Internet History machine, etc.)?

Let me know your insight please!
-Joe

[Jilo]

Im guessing you can do that by looking at the 'WhoIs history' line on whois.domaintools.com. Example: The creation date for a certain domain is 24-11-2010, but if you read on the WhoIs history line:

Whois History:
23 records have been archived since 2007-05-30 .

[katherine]

registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois/

[Daem0n]

katherine - thanks for the reply! Unfortunately this method only shows the last registrar and not the "actual" age of the domain.

Jilo - you are correct, so far that's the only method I've found but requires a subscription to the site (which I'm sure would be worth it if I was in domaining full time but unfortunately is quite pricey for the average guy). Do you use their services?

[katherine]

The registry has the true age of the domain: creation date

However, if the name did drop in the past then the creation date is obviously reset at the next registration.
I would look at domaintools & hosterstats.com, but there is no official archive of domain history.
Only the registry must have that kind of information.

Archive.org may also reveal earlier traces of the domain.