WHOIS.sorabji.com uses Google’s Custom Search Engine (CSE) product to index web sites that harvest public WHOIS records and other information about public web sites. I have been using this targeted WHOIS search to discover who owns web sites and/or domain names in my neighborhood, on particular streets, and even at particular addresses.
The results have been surprisingly illuminative, and all good. It seemed a little creepy at first but in reality I do not feel I am uncovering anything that I should not know. I’ve discovered a number of local artists, some freelance workspace shares, a lot of actors, and some generally interesting people who I would likely never find through commercial search engines.
Some sites are old, others are new, but the ability to find them by geographical location of the domain name’s registrant feels democratizing in a way, as it turns up content in a manner which bypasses SERP algorithms.
One way to use it is to enter a streetname plus a zipcode, though this often has the effect of turning up far too many results. The CSE only allows 10 pages of results, and searching for every domain name registered on Broadway in the 10023 zip code, for instance, returns over 190,000 results, far more than 10 pages can accommodate.
The best approach seems to be searching specific addresses, which is a bit of an art in and of itself. There is obviously no standard among domain name registrars for formatting address information, so many variations exist in how registrants enter their street names and numbers. “123 Main Street” will return different results from “123 Main St.”, as would “5th Avenue” versus “5 Ave” or any other number of variations.
The quantity of domain names indexed in this manner is far from comprehensive. Not only are a great number of domain names registrations private but the sites in the CSE grab domain names seemingly at random. So what does turn up, as interesting as it is, is far from representative of how many domain names are actually registered in a certain area. There are also a lot of parked web sites and domains with no associated live web site.
Still, it’s all pretty interesting if you ask me.
Some sites also return information on expired domain names. I have always thought there should be a central WHOWAS registry listing previous owners of domain names. Archive.org sometimes makes that possible but its coverage is similarly scattershot.
Give WHOIS.sorabji.com a try and see what you think.
