Domgate has added three free domain name tools to domgate.com. The whois lookup and the Punycode converter went live on 2 October 2026, and the DNS zone check followed on 6 October. None needs an account, and each works in ten languages.
What do the three tools do?
They show who manages a domain name and until when, convert a name to and from its xn-- form, and check how a name is set up in the DNS. All three are listed on the tools page.
| Tool | Live since | Use limit stated on the page |
|---|---|---|
| Whois lookup | 2 October 2026 | 20 new lookups every 10 minutes |
| Punycode converter | 2 October 2026 | None stated; it runs in your browser |
| DNS zone check | 6 October 2026 | 10 new checks every 10 minutes |
The ten languages are English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic, each at its own address, such as domgate.com/de/tools/whois for the whois lookup in German.
How do you check who manages a domain name and when it expires?
Type the name into the whois lookup, which asks the registry of the extension what it publishes. The result gives the registrar, the creation, update and expiry dates, the status codes, the name servers and whether the name is signed with DNSSEC. It also reads the name’s IP addresses, network and mail servers from the DNS. A second mode takes up to 20 names, one per line.
The tool asks the registry’s RDAP service first, then its whois server. RDAP carries the same data in a structured format over a secure connection, and on 28 January 2025 ICANN made it the definitive source of registration data for generic extensions such as .com, in place of whois. Country code extensions vary: on 8 October 2026, IANA’s RDAP bootstrap registry named an RDAP service for 72 of the 248 two-letter country code extensions in the root zone. Where a registry offers neither service to the public, the tool links to its website.
On 8 October 2026, a lookup of afnic.fr came back from the .fr registry’s RDAP service, rdap.nic.fr. A lookup of nic.it came back from the .it registry’s whois server, whois.nic.it: created on 27 August 1997, expiring on 31 December 2026, six name servers, signed with DNSSEC and status ok, which ICANN describes as the standard status. Other codes describe locks: clientTransferProhibited tells the registry to reject transfers to another registrar, which helps prevent hijacking.
The holder is often hidden. When the GDPR took full effect on 25 May 2018, ICANN’s Temporary Specification required the registries and registrars of generic extensions to redact personal data from public results where the regulation applies. The whois page advises contacting the registrar shown in the result, which can pass on a message.
What is an xn-- name, and how do you convert it?
An xn-- name is the ASCII form of an internationalised domain name. Host name labels allow only ASCII letters, digits and hyphens, so RFC 3492, published in March 2003, defines Punycode to turn any Unicode label into those characters and back. Each encoded label takes the prefix xn--.
The converter works both ways, one name per line, as you type: münchen.de becomes xn--mnchen-3ya.de. In a web or email address, only the domain is converted. The page states that the conversion runs in your browser and that nothing you paste is sent.
DNS zone files, server and certificate settings and some registry forms ask for the xn-- form. Converting also exposes look-alike names: a name that should read as plain Latin but contains an xn-- label has characters outside a to z, such as letters from another script, a possible sign of a homograph attack. Extensions have a Punycode form too: .рф, the Cyrillic country code extension for Russia, is xn--p1ai. Domgate’s IDN extensions page lists 56 extensions written in local scripts, 49 of them grouped under 23 countries.
What does the DNS zone check verify?
The zone check verifies the name servers of a name, its website and email records, and its DNSSEC and CAA records, marking each line OK, Warning or Missing.
- Name servers: those the registry delegates to, whether the zone lists the same ones, whether each one answers, and whether all of them serve the same SOA serial.
- Website and email: A and AAAA addresses, MX servers, SPF and DMARC.
- Security: whether the DS record at the registry matches a DNSSEC key in the zone, and the CAA records.
A check of denic.de on 8 October 2026 found the same four name servers at the .de registry and in the zone, all serving the same serial, a DMARC policy of p=reject and a DS record that matches a published key. CAA came back Missing, which the tool explains is optional. Its stated limit: it compares DNSSEC keys and does not verify signatures.
What should you do now?
Start with your own names. Run your main domains through the zone check, and take any Warning, or a missing SPF or DMARC record, to whoever runs your DNS. Before you buy or dispute a name, look it up in the whois and note its registrar and expiry date. When an xn-- name turns up in a suspicious email, convert it to see which name it imitates.
The three tools check names you already know. To be told when someone registers a name containing your brand, Domgate’s trademark watching covers the country code domains of its catalogue. For the domains registered with it, Domgate’s DNS management publishes the records and, if you choose, signs them with DNSSEC where the registry supports it.
