Domain Statistics

Explanatory notes

Guides

Plain-English guides to the things a domain report shows — and how to check them yourself.

  1. 01

    What domain age means (and what it doesn't)

    Registration date, first website and first archive capture are different things. How RDAP shows dates, why dropped names reset, and what Google says.

  2. 02

    How to check whether Google has indexed your site

    A quick site search only shows a sample. How to check indexing properly with Search Console's URL Inspection and Page indexing reports, Bing and IndexNow.

  3. Rows of server racks in the CERN data centre, with signs marking the web and mail servers
    Photo: Hugovanmeijeren, CC BY-SA 3.0
    03

    DNS records explained

    What A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, CAA, SOA and PTR records do, how TTL caching works, how a DNS lookup is resolved and what DNSSEC adds.

  4. 04

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained

    How SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop people spoofing your domain in email, with example records, the SPF 10-lookup limit, Gmail and Yahoo rules and NCSC advice.

  5. 05

    SSL/TLS certificates explained

    What a website certificate proves, DV vs OV vs EV, expiry dates and SANs, HSTS, Let's Encrypt, Certificate Transparency and the move to 47-day limits.

  6. The Internet Archive's headquarters, a white neoclassical former church with tall columns, in San Francisco
    Photo: Girl2k, Public domain
    06

    The Wayback Machine: a website's history

    How the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine captures websites, how to read its calendar, what a first capture means, and the gaps to watch for.

  7. 07

    How domain value is judged

    The factors people weigh when pricing a domain name, why automated appraisals are only rough guesses, and the trade mark checks to make first.

  8. 08

    Buying expired domains: what to check

    How expired .com and .uk domains move from expiry to release, the grace periods involved, and the history, spam and trade mark checks to make first.

  9. 09

    .uk domains: a short history

    How .uk began in 1985, Nominet's role since 1996, second-level domains such as .co.uk and .ac.uk, and the 2014 launch of names directly under .uk.