Free tool
Domain age checker
Type a domain. This reads its creation date from the authoritative registry and tells you exactly how old it is — along with the registrar, the nameservers and when the record last changed.
Why domain age is asked about so often
Age is the cheapest available proxy for whether something has been around long enough to be taken seriously. Three groups check it constantly, for three different reasons:
- Buying a domain. A 1998 registration that has renewed continuously is a different asset from one created last month, and the price should reflect that.
- Checking whether a site is a fraud. A shop emailing you about an order, registered eleven days ago, has told you most of what you need to know. This is the single fastest check available.
- SEO work. Age is not a ranking factor in the way folklore claims, but a domain's registration date bounds how long it can possibly have been accruing links.
Age is not the same as site age. The registry knows when the domain was created and nothing at all about what has been served on it. A domain registered in 2003, parked until last month, and only now carrying a website is fifteen years old and one month useful. If that distinction matters to you, the registry date is a ceiling rather than an answer.
What it reads, and from where
The creation date comes from the registry operator for that TLD, over RDAP, at the moment you press the button. Not a cached WHOIS mirror, and not our database — we do not have one for this. The request goes from your browser straight to the registry, so we never see which domain you checked.
The age itself is calendar arithmetic, not days divided by 365. On a domain registered in the nineties that difference is a day or two, which is small and wrong, and this is exactly the kind of page where being quietly wrong is not worth the shortcut.
When the registry will not say
A few registries publish no creation date at all, and some country-code registries publish no RDAP service to ask. Where the date is missing this page says so rather than estimating from something else, because an inferred age presented as a fact is worse than an admitted gap.
You may also see a creation date that is newer than the site obviously is. That usually means the domain lapsed and was re-registered — the registry has no memory of the previous registration, and neither does any tool reading it.
Age tells you where it started. Status tells you where it is going
The same record carries the expiration date and the status codes, and those are the ones that change. A domain twenty years old can still be four weeks from dropping, and nothing about its age will warn you.
The domain expiry checker leads with that instead. And DropPerch re-reads the registry daily for every domain you watch, so the change reaches you before the consequences do — 25 domains free, no card.
Common questions
How is domain age calculated?
From the creation date in the registry record to today, as calendar years and months rather than days divided by 365. The creation date is read live from the registry over RDAP each time you check.
Is this domain age checker free?
Yes, with no signup, no account and no limit. The lookup runs in your browser and talks to the registry directly, so it costs us nothing to serve.
Does domain age affect SEO?
Not directly, despite the folklore. Google has said repeatedly that age itself is not a ranking factor. What age does is bound how long a domain can have been accumulating links and history, and those do matter.
Why is the registration date newer than the website?
Almost always because the domain lapsed and was registered again. The registry keeps no record of the previous registration, so every tool reading it will report the newer date.
Is domain age the same as website age?
No. The registry knows when the domain was created and nothing about what has been served on it. A domain can be registered for fifteen years and have carried a site for one month.
Can I check the age of a domain I do not own?
Yes. Creation dates are public registry data and need no permission or account. That is true of every field this page shows.
One lookup tells you today. Monitoring tells you in time.
DropPerch re-reads the registry for every domain you watch, every day, and emails you before it expires. Any registrar, no transfer, 25 domains free with no card.