Protocol
RDAP, not scraped WHOIS text
RDAP is the standardized successor to WHOIS. Its dates come in fixed fields, so there is no free text to misread.
- Bitmovin
- HBO Nordic
- Obsidian
- Laravel
- Fathom Analytics
- PHP 8
- Stanford University
- Takeaway.com
- IGN
- VRT NWS
- spatie
Three checks, three jobs
Three checks for three different failures.
A domain can lapse at the registry, its certificate can expire on the server, or its records can change under you. Each failure has its own Oh Dear check. This page covers the first one.
Domain monitoring
Registration and expiry
Who registered the name, and when it lapses.
Warn window
10 days before expiry by default. Change it per site.
Cadence
Every 4 hours once expiry is less than 30 days away.
Certificate monitoring
The served certificate
The certificate your server presents, and its chain.
Its expiry
Separate from the domain: a valid domain can still serve an expired certificate.
Cadence
Every 30 minutes by default.
DNS monitoring
Records
What the name resolves to, and when that changes.
Nameservers
NS changes, the classic early sign of a hijack.
Cadence
Every 2 hours by default.
Run all three on the same site. Read more about certificate monitoring and DNS monitoring.
How the check works
A warning with enough time to renew.
Oh Dear reads your domain's registration data on a schedule. When expiry enters your warn window, one reminder a day goes out until the new date shows up.
Cadence and warn window
Checked more often as expiry gets closer.
Each check reads the domain's current registration data over RDAP, the structured successor to WHOIS. A domain that expires next year doesn't need a check every few hours. One that expires next week does, so Oh Dear checks it every 4 hours. The warn window opens 10 days before expiry, unless you set a different lead time for that site.
Time until expiry
Checked
More than a year
Once a week
Less than a year
Once a day
Less than 90 days
Twice a day
Less than 30 days
Every 4 hours
Already expired
Every 4 hours
What sends an alert
Three outcomes, each with its own rule.
Warning
Expires inside your warn window
One reminder a day, with the number of days left, until the registry shows the new expiry date.
Failed
The domain has expired
The check fails, and the daily reminder keeps going until the domain is renewed.
Failed
RDAP returns no data for the domain
Silence from the registry is news too. You get one alert, not one a day, until the data comes back.
Coverage, stated plainly
Structured data, and the limits that come with it.
RDAP gives Oh Dear structured dates instead of free text to parse. It also means a domain can only be checked when its registry publishes RDAP data. The documentation lists every supported TLD.
In the report
EPP status codes
The check report lists the domain's status codes, like clientTransferProhibited, the flag that makes the registry reject transfer requests.
Weekly
New TLDs picked up
Oh Dear rechecks RDAP support every week. When a registry starts publishing, monitoring starts on its own.
What it checks
-
The registration and expiry dates of the registered domain. Monitor
shop.example.comand Oh Dear checksexample.com. - Domains on TLDs whose registry publishes RDAP data, such as .com, .net, .org, .nl and .co.uk.
- Whether RDAP still returns data for the domain.
- The domain's EPP status codes, shown in the check report.
What it does not
- TLDs without RDAP data yet, such as .be and .de.
- Changes to EPP status codes. They are shown in the report, not alerted on.
- Nameserver and record changes: DNS monitoring.
- Monitors on an IP address. There is no domain to look up.
- Renewing the domain. That stays with you at the registrar.
Built for a client roster
Every client domain in one account.
A reminder email stops working when its owner leaves, and a spreadsheet of renewal dates goes stale within a quarter. Add every client site instead.
Portfolio view
Renewals with an owner, not a hope.
Client-owned domains are the ones that lapse: the bill goes to an inbox nobody reads. Each site you add gets its own domain check. The monitor list flags the domains that are about to expire, and each warning goes to whoever manages that client, so nobody finds out from the client.
Domain
Alerts go to
Expires in
example.com
Account team · Slack
8 days
example.net
Shop team · Email
151 days
example.org
Platform team · PagerDuty
76 days
It lets us know if any of our sites have a problem before my client even knows about it!
Jim Peters, Co-founder at Pavin' The Way
A lapsed domain is one of those problems. The warning comes 10 days early by default.
Operational ownership
Send the renewal warning to whoever owns the client.
A lapse can belong to the domain owner, the billing contact, or one client's account manager. Give each monitored site its own responsible people, and its expiry alerts arrive on the channels they already use.
One client's renewal should not alert the whole team. Route per site, not per account.
Slack
Email
Webhook
No feature tiers
Every check.
Every plan.
Domain monitoring is included with Oh Dear's website-health checks on every plan. Choose by the number of sites you monitor, not by which checks you need.
Start with everything on.
Try domain monitoring alongside uptime, certificate, DNS and the rest of the website-health toolkit.
- Domain expiry monitoring on every plan
- Every monitoring feature included
- Plans scale by monitored site count
- No credit card required
10-day free trial. No credit card.
Before the first check
Questions about domain monitoring.
What Oh Dear watches, how far ahead it warns, and where domain monitoring ends.
What is domain monitoring?
Domain monitoring watches your domain's registration and expiry date, and warns you well before it lapses, so you never lose a domain you own to a missed renewal.
How often does Oh Dear check my domains?
It depends on how close the expiry date is. Once a week when expiry is more than a year away, once a day within a year, twice a day within 90 days, and every 4 hours in the last 30 days and after expiry. A renewal shows up at the next check.
How far ahead will you warn me before expiry?
10 days ahead by default. You can change the lead time per site in its domain settings, up to 90 days. Oh Dear sends at most one reminder a day until the new expiry date shows up, so the warning never turns into an alert storm.
What triggers a domain alert?
Three things: the expiry date falls inside your warn window, the domain has expired, or RDAP no longer returns any data for the domain. The first two repeat once a day. The last one alerts once, until the data comes back.
Which TLDs are supported?
Every TLD whose registry publishes RDAP data, including .com, .net, .org, .nl and .co.uk. Some registries don't publish RDAP data yet, such as .be and .de. Oh Dear rechecks support every week and starts monitoring a domain once its TLD is supported. The documentation lists every supported TLD.
I monitor a subdomain. Which domain gets checked?
The registered domain it belongs to. Monitor shop.example.com and Oh Dear checks the registration of example.com. It uses the public suffix list for this, so shop.example.co.uk checks example.co.uk.
Will Oh Dear renew the domain for me?
No. Oh Dear warns you in time to renew. The renewal itself stays with you at the registrar.
Does Oh Dear detect unauthorized domain changes?
Domain monitoring focuses on expiry. The check report shows your domain's EPP status codes, like clientTransferProhibited, but a change to them does not send an alert. To catch the classic sign of a hijack, your nameservers suddenly changing, use DNS monitoring: it watches your NS records and alerts you when they change.
Can I combine domain monitoring with SSL alerts?
Yes. Domain expiry ends your ownership of the name. Certificate expiry ends the trust browsers place in your site. Oh Dear tracks your domain's expiry and its SSL certificate on the same site, as two separate checks, so neither one expiring quietly takes you offline.
Can I monitor expiration dates across many domains at once?
Yes. Each site you add gets its own domain check. The monitor list flags every domain that is about to expire, each site's report shows its dates, and the API returns them per monitor. Alerts can go to different people per site.
What should a domain monitoring service include?
Expiry alerts with enough lead time to renew, an overview of all your domains, and alerts in your team's channels. Oh Dear bundles all of it with uptime, SSL, and DNS monitoring, and DNS monitoring is where you watch for nameserver changes.
Is there free domain monitoring?
During Oh Dear's 10-day trial, yes, full domain monitoring with alerts. A free WHOIS lookup can show an expiry date when you remember to ask, but it won't warn you when the date is about to pass.
