WhoisXML API Blog

Essential tools for server operators in action

The Internet is a very dangerous place. A server with a public IP address could become the subject of an attack virtually at any time of its operation. Indeed, any service that is vulnerable to any extent is likely to be exploited at some point if left this way; no server operator can deny playing this cat-and-mouse game with hackers. 

Not all hackers meet the stereotypes attributed to them, though. One does not have to be an ingenious IT specialist with very tricky ideas to try and exploit servers. Picking an exploit kit written by someone else, and letting it run on arbitrary IP addresses is essentially free, and it will surely harvest something: sooner or later it will run into a content management system on a website whose owner failed to apply some important security update, or web-based database management console left open to the public. All these could result in an administrator’s access to the server, which may lead to dramatic consequences for the owner. 

It is always instructive, for instance, to frequently take a good look at the access log of your web servers. Let us conduct a bit of an investigation to illustrate what is typically going on.

Make the Most Out of SEO with a Reverse IP Search Tool

Today, it is no longer enough for organizations to advertise their products and services online. Markets are pretty saturated, and so companies need to put extra effort into making sure they come out on top. In particular, businesses need to drive traffic to their websites, much like brick-and-mortar shop owners convince would-be customers to come through their doors.

One of the most effective ways to do that is by making your company’s domain rank with the help of innovative search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Apart from just stuffing content with the right keywords for search engines to track, SEO has a technical aspect to it as well, and a reverse IP search tool like Reverse IP/DNS Lookup can help enhance it.

We’ll delve into the more technical aspect of SEO in this post, but first, let’s discuss why SEO is vital for any organization that does business online.

Is This Email Address Valid? Here Are 5 Ways to Check and Why It Matters

Based on research data, the global email user base will be increasing by 2-3% every year until it reaches 4.4 billion users in 2023. So, more than ever, email marketers need to be able to answer the following questions: Are all the email addresses in my recipient lists valid? Will my messages be able to reach intended recipients or not? Also, do any of my collected addresses have ties to malicious activity?

Each day, users send an average of 54 billion legitimate emails across the globe. Interestingly, a whole lot more malicious spam messages get sent, averaging 302.99 billion a day. When threats are everywhere, the mere act of opening spam could lead to becoming the next victim of phishing or an even more sinister attack.

On the other side of the fence, meanwhile, marketers are worried that their messages may not reach the right people. A lot of organizations suffer from high bounce and low open rates, with adverse effects on their marketing efforts. Sadly, no matter how great your campaigns are, if your emails do not reach loyal customers or leads of interest, your efforts are bound to go down the drain.

To alleviate these and other issues, organizations need a means to be able to check the validity of email addresses they come in contact with. So, email verification with products such as Email Verification Lookup or its counterparts Email Verification API or Email Verification Bulk API can be integral to any company’s successful and efficient operations. To illustrate how these tools work exactly, we listed down five supported email checks in this post.

3 Reasons for Online Shopping Cart Abandonment and How Geo IP Targeting Can Address Them

Almost 70% of shopping carts are abandoned upon checkout, based on 41 different studies. In light of this, checkout optimization should be a top priority for e-commerce websites to reduce the number of cart abandonment, and, therefore, missed revenue opportunities.

Think about this example: Out of more than 20 million e-commerce sites all over the world, 10 customers found your online store and liked your products enough to put some of them in their shopping carts. When they reach the checkout page, around seven decide to abandon their carts, leaving only three actual paying customers. Either the seven people changed their minds entirely or they decided to buy from a competitor.

It’s hard enough to make an e-commerce website stand out from the millions that offer similar products. It’s equally challenging to convince customers to stay and complete purchases. It is, however, not impossible.

In this article, we examined three reasons for cart abandonment according to the Baymard Institute and how geo IP targeting can help solve the problem by offering a smoother online shopping experience.

How to Check Domain Name Availability and Safety

One of the most important moments of building your online presence is creating the name of your domain. In the digital sphere, the domain is your address and your identity. Before you settle for a domain, however, you have to jump through a few hoops.

You may think of a perfect name only to discover that it’s already taken or too similar to another brand’s domain. You may find that the perfect domain name is available but you cannot afford it. So how do you find the middle ground between originality, availability and affordability? More importantly, how do you avoid winding up with a domain name you may regret? With a little bit of brainstorming and research. We’ll show you how.

How to Check Site Activity & Validity with Domain and IP Intelligence Tools

In an industry that increasingly gets more competitive every day, a seller’s reputation matters a lot. As personal selling is not possible online, e-commerce sites rely on several factors to establish consumer trust. Among them are reviews, which compensate for the lack of face-to-face transactions. In fact, 90% of consumers stated that positive reviews influence their purchasing decisions. Consistency in terms of the quality of one’s product and services also plays a crucial role in fostering trust.

But because digital commerce is cut-throat, online merchants sometimes resort to whatever it takes to maintain their share of the profits—even if they tarnish someone else’s reputation in the process. For instance, some sell replicas and pass them off as authentic items. They may also impersonate legitimate businesses on your site or manipulate product search results with blackhat marketing techniques. Finally, with the right exploit tools, some even manage to hijack someone else’s brand, starting with products and the target’s account.

This tutorial instructs users on performing vendor website assessments with enterprise-grade domain and IP intelligence solutions to prevent rogue sellers from abusing e-commerce platforms. But before we go on, let’s first deconstruct the reasons behind website audits.

How to Find Out Who Owns a Domain Name with Reverse WHOIS Search and WHOIS Database Download

In the past, there was no way for users to find out what other domains, if any, a particular registrant owns without first translating a domain name into an IP address. But with the shortage of available IPv4 addresses, which resulted in the assignment of shared IP addresses to unrelated individuals or even companies, that approach has become riddled with difficulties.

Even if you can pinpoint the owner of an IP address, a shared one would provide users with a list of domains that may take a lot of time to sift through. If that IP address turns up as an indicator of compromise (IoC) in a publicly accessible report, affected users would have to go through each related domain’s WHOIS records to get to the bottom of the issue. Imagine how long that would take if you had 30 domains or more to scrutinize.

Thankfully, domain intelligence providers like our company have streamlined this process with the introduction of tools like Reverse WHOIS Search and offerings such as WHOIS Database Download.

This post shows how users can find out who owns a domain name in five simple steps.

IP Netblocks WHOIS Database and IP Netblocks API: Two Relevant Ways to Search for LACNIC IP Block Owners

We recently announced that our IP netblocks services underwent data enrichment. Users of our database and API should be delighted to know that our ratio of IP netblocks from Latin America and the Caribbean with some meaningful contact information increased from 0% to 61%. Most of the entries previously showed redacted results, but that is no longer the case. We have substantially improved the ratio of IP netblocks with said information for other regions as well.

In light of this welcome development, we wrote this article for users looking for LACNIC netblock data for different purposes. The post includes some background on LACNIC and shows how to search for available IP blocks and effectively assess those they come into contact with by using our IP Netblocks WHOIS Database and IP Netblocks API.