# Domain monitoring Never lose a domain again. Our domain monitoring service helps protect your identity by keeping an eye on your domains. This way, you don't have to worry about your domains being lost or hijacked. Thousands of domains are at risk every day, but with our monitoring, you can have peace of mind. [ Start monitoring ](https://ohdear.app/register) 10 day free trial No credit card required ## Why you should monitor your domain name Your domain name is a crucial but also vulernable aspect of your online identity Losing a domain due to forgetfulness or hijacking can be devastating for a business. Protect yourself with our domain monitoring service. We continuously monitor your domains to make sure they stay in your control, giving you peace of mind and allowing you to focus on running your business. ## We track your domain status multiple times per day and notify you when expiry dates are coming up When registering a domain name, you could assume it is yours forever. Unfortunately, this is false, and most domains must be renewed periodically. If you fail to do this, you risk losing your domain, and ownership could be transferred away from you. Oh Dear's Domain check can send you a notification days before your domain expires. This way, you still have time to renew it. ## Choose how we let you know when a DNS record changes or a failure is detected Receive our notifications on your preferred platform. Via email, SMS, Slack, Discord, Opsgenie, PagerDuty, Microsoft Teams, Pushover, ntfy, webhooks,… we can notify you wherever your team is active. Take notifications to the next level: only notify who needs notifying by assigning responsibilities to different team members. ## Stop worrying, start monitoring Start a no-strings-attached 10-day free trial. You're all set in less than a minute. (No credit card needed.) Not convinced yet? Need help? Get in touch via . ### Let’s get technical (if you’re into that) You don’t need to be computer savvy to set up our tool. But if you are, we’re happy to explain exactly how it works and how you can customize Oh Dear to your specific needs. ## Introducing RDAP to prevent false alerts To monitor domain names, we rely on **RDAP**, which stands for Registration Data Access Protocol. It is a standardized protocol managed by IANA, the non-profit organization that manages IP address allocation, DNS, and more... **RDAP is the successor of WHOIS**. The most significant improvement is that all information in RDAP is standardized, whereas information in WHOIS is available as unstructured text. Registry operators of most TLDs (**.com, .net, .org, ...**) send information about the domains they manage to RDAP so anyone can query the information. Unfortunately, not all TLDs are supported. Most notably: .be and .nl domains are not supported, but they will be in time. ## Really into the nitty gritty details? Want to get into the nitty gritty details of our monitoring? Have a look at our documentation. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is domain monitoring? Domain monitoring keeps an eye on 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 do I get alerted before my domain expires? Oh Dear reads your domain's expiry date and warns you before the renewal deadline (10 days ahead by default, and you can change the lead time), on whichever channels you use. No more hoping the registrar's reminder email doesn't land in spam. ### Can I monitor expiration dates across many domains at once? Yes. Add all your domains and see every expiry date in one dashboard, with per-domain alerts as renewal dates approach. ### Does Oh Dear detect unauthorized domain changes? Domain monitoring focuses on expiry, not on registration changes. To catch the classic signs of a hijack, like your nameservers suddenly changing, that's what our [DNS monitoring](https://ohdear.app/features/dns-monitoring) is for: it watches your NS records and alerts you when they change. ### Can I combine domain monitoring with SSL alerts? Yes. Oh Dear tracks your domain's expiry and its [SSL certificate](https://ohdear.app/features/continuous-certificate-monitoring) on the same site, so neither one expiring quietly takes you offline. ### What should a domain monitoring service include? Expiry alerts with enough lead time to renew, one dashboard covering all your domains, and alerting into 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 on demand, but it won't warn you when the date is about to pass. [See all other FAQ items →](https://ohdear.app/docs/faq) ## Start monitoring instantly Start a no-strings-attached 10-day free trial. You're all set in less than a minute. (No credit card needed.) Not convinced yet? Need help? Get in touch via .