Do you need to buy the whois protection of your domain name?

I am in many Facebook groups for bloggers. Lately, I have seen a lot of the same questions being asked by new bloggers who were creating their new blog. Their question was: “Is it important to buy the option for the confidentiality of the domain name?”, “Is it important to purchase the whois protection?”. My answer: it depends on what you prefer to do. At the end of this blog post, you will be able to make your decision.

In this article, I will show you a concrete example so that you can understand why it is important to do so. If you do not buy it, anyone can have access to your phone number, home address, full name and email address … and more.

This privacy option protects you from the tech command “whois yourdomainname.com”. What does this command do? It is used to obtain information about the owner of a domain name.

What is a domain name: This is the address to your website, e.g. girlknowstech.com and girlknowstech.ca, are domain names. It is the link to your blog.

This post contains affiliate links. Clicking on these links won’t cost you anything, but it might help me to maintain this blog by giving me a small commission. You can read my full disclosure here. Thanks! 

What is Whois

As I said, Whois is a command that allows you to obtain information about a domain name. It returns a lot of information, for example:

• The personal information of the domain owner,
  • Full name
  • Phone number
  • Full address
  • Email address
• name of the server used
• Date of creation and expiration of the domain name
• and more

Typically, to use the command, you enter it at a command prompt, like this:

Fortunately, at the end of this article, I propose a way to test your blog but with a simpler way! 🙂

Why the Whois command exists?

his command is mainly used to find out if a domain name is registered somewhere.

How to see if your personal information is protected

You can check if the public has access to your information by using this website! Just enter the address of your site in the input field and click on “Search”, as shown in the gif below:

My information is hidden. On the other hand, if they were not, they would appear before the “registrant,” which I highlight in blue in the gif. So this is where you need to check that it’s hidden really for you!

Why activate the protection?

• No calls and fewer advertising emails of people offering services
  It seems like it happens to a lot of individuals when they haven’t hidden their data
• Your information will be less publicly accessible to anyone who wants to know where you live
  I say less convenient because it is possible to make a whois with the history. Thus, if you did not activate protection as soon as your domain name was registered, the information will probably be accessible. On the other hand, it is more difficult, and it takes a little more motivation to access the information.

Why not activate the protection?

Like everything in life, there pros and cons!

• Might cost a bit more money
  I remind you that there are companies that offer this protection for free.
• Loss of credibility / reputation
  Will your readers bother to make a whois on your domain name?
• If someone wants to buy your website, he can find how to contact you
  I’m sure your email address is all over your site, right? A potential motivated buyer will most likely find out how to communicate with you.

It’s up to you to see what’s important to you. I chose to opt for protection. By cons, now that I have a PO Box, maybe I would use it!

How to activate Whois protection

Your information is not hidden? Don’t panic! It is probably possible to enable this extra security by visiting your customer area of the company where you registered your domain name. Look for an option with a name similar to “whois protection”, “domain privacy”, and so on.

However, be aware that several websites offer this service for free (OVH and Namecheap to name just a few), so it should be considered when you buy a domain name, the cost could be higher than with the addition of this privacy option. HostPapa offers it at $ 10 per year.

Conclusion

Finally, I hope this article will help you better understand why it is worth paying a little more (or make sure it’s free before buying the domain name) to protect your personal information to individuals who may be malicious!