Getting started

The Public Register Search Service (PRSS) is a subscription service operating within our Online Service.  This service is available to both PRSS users and administrative contacts on your Nominet account.

Domain Searches

There are two types of domain serach: match and similarity.

Domain match

This search looks for the exact word for domain names currently registered.
For example a search on nominet will only return the three exact matches of nominet registered: nominet.org.uk, nominet.co.uk and nominet.me.uk.

The search can be broadened by the use of wildcard characters. This can be useful if you cannot find what you are looking for with the usual spelling of a name.  The PRSS supports:

• A question mark ? to replace a single character.  This is useful if you want to find a spelling variation that involves a change of only one letter.  For example, nom?net would find nominet, nom1net, nomynet.
• An asterisk * to replace zero or more characters.  This is useful if you are looking for a domain name that contains a specific word.
  For example *nominet will return wwwnominet.org.uk. Similarly an asterisk can be used at the end to return domain names with a suffix to the search term.
• To search for domain names that contain a specific term use an asterisk at either end. For example *nominet*.

You can use several wildcards in combination with each other, however complex searches with multiple wildcard may take a little longer to process. The domain search field requires at least three consecutive non-wildcard characters.

Domain is similar to

When this search option is selected, domain names that are typographically similar to the query term are returned. Searching for nominet, for example, would return domain names registered such as n0minet.org.uk, nminet.org.uk or nominets.org.uk.

This search is based on an algorithm for character replacement. As a result this type of search will most likely return a very large number of results. Results are ranked based on a scoring system and the most relevant results are displayed first. The first column in the search result shows the relevance score. Care should be taken when viewing the results of a similarity search, particularly if you intend to download the results to a csv file. Download to csv gives you the option to select the number of pages included in the download. Simply downloading all pages will most likely use a significant portion of your weekly quota.

This functionality is still under development and its current implementation may have inaccuracies. A number of false positives may be returned i.e. they are not typographically similar to the search term. We would appreciate any feedback that you have with this search function and your experiences in using it.

Registrant searches

This search option allows you to search the registrant field for domain names. There are three search options available: contains the words, contains the phrase, and matches exactly.

Contains the words

This search will return domain names where the registrant field matches the search terms in any order. For example a search for John Smith will return domain names registered to John Smith, Mr John T Smith or Smith John. Wild cards can be used to broaden the search.

Contains the phrase

This will only include results where the registrant contains the searched terms in the order given. For Example John Smith would return John Smith, Mr John Smith, John Smith Ltd, but not John T Smith or John and Barry Smith. Wild cards cannot be used in this search type.

Matches exactly

This search option allows an exact search to be carried out against the registrant field. It benefits from allowing a two character search term and may also include non-alphanumeric characters e.g. "na", "n-a", n/a". Wildcards cannot be used in this search type.

Search filters

Search results can be filtered by a number of factors:

• Domain name suffix i.e. .co.uk, .org.uk etc.
• Tag
• Registration date ranges
• Address
• Post code

Exporting to CSV

The Export results to CSV file command makes it easy to export data as a comma-separated values (CSV) file.  You will be presented with options which allow you to tailor the number of domain names you export.

Alerts

PRSS alerts allow up to 20 search terms to be monitored automatically, sending an email notification whenever matching domain names are registered. Alert terms are based on the Domain match search type described above, and can include wildcards. Please be aware that a broad search term set as an alert could potentially return a wide variety of domain names in each daily alert. We recommend that you test your alert terms by running them as standard searches with date limits to ensure you gain maximum benefit from the service.

Alert notifications cover the previous day's registrations and will be sent to the email address you use to access your PRSS account.  For quota purposes each domain name returned counts as one result.  Alerts are not answered partially and we will notify you by email if your quota is too low to receive an alert, however once the quota is reset any missed results will be included in your next notification.

Quotas

When you complete a search on the PRSS, the results are displayed on screen. Any results displayed will be deducted from your weekly quota. You can adjust the number of results that you want to have displayed. If you then subsequently view more results or download as a CSV the balance will be deducted from your total allowance. Results can be reordered, however this does re-run the query and the results displayed will be deducted from your quota even if they have been previously displayed. This also applies to the use of the refine search function.