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Frequently asked questions

  • I am looking for a domain name registrant. Where can I look it up?

    The Whois is an easy-to-use tool for checking the availability of a .nl domain name. If the domain name is already taken, you can see who has registered it.

    On the page looking up a domain name you will find more information about what a domain name is, how the Whois works and how the privacy of personal data is protected. Alternatively, you can go straight to look for a domain name via the Whois.

  • I would like to transfer my domain name to another registrar. What is the procedure?

    To get your domain name transferred, you need the token (unique ID number) for your domain name. Your existing registrar has the token and is obliged to give it to you within five days, if you ask for it. The procedure for changing your registrar is described on the page transferring your domain name.

  • The details registered about me/my company are incorrect or out of date. How can I get them updated?

    To update the contact details associated with your domain name, you need to contact your registrar. Read more about updating contact details.

  • Why is my domain name in quarantine?

    When a domain name is cancelled, we aren't told the reason, so we can't tell you. You'll need to ask your registrar. The advantage of quarantine is that, if a name's cancelled by mistake, you can always get it back.

    One common reason is that the contract between you and your registrar says you've got to renew the registration every year. If you haven't set up automatic renewal and you don't renew manually, the registration will expire.

  • Ik heb een klacht over mijn provider/registrar. Kan ik daarvoor bij SIDN terecht?

    Wanneer je een klacht hebt over of een geschil met je registrar dan zijn er verschillende mogelijkheden om tot een oplossing te komen. Hierover lees je meer op pagina klacht over registrar. SIDN heeft geen formele klachtenprocedure voor het behandelen van een klacht over jouw registrar.

  • What conditions do I have to meet as a registrar?

    Would you like to be able to register domain names for customers or for your own organisation by dealing directly with SIDN? If so, you can become a .nl registrar. Read more about the conditions and how to apply for registrar status on the page becoming a registrar.

More frequently asked questions

SIDN provides secondary DNS service for Curaçao's .cw top-level domain

Anycast hosting increases speed and resilience

The 'Welcome to Curaçao sign' in the center of Willemstad
  • Tuesday 26 September 2023

SIDN has recently started providing a secondary DNS service for Curaçao's .cw top-level domain. The service is based on our new anycast infrastructure [1, 2]. Anycast involves multiple geographically distributed servers all having the same IP address, resulting in a fast set-up with ample redundancy.

"We provide similar secondary DNS services for the national domains of France and Denmark, .fr and .dk," explains SIDN's Infrastructure & Security Architect Marc Groeneweg. "However, those 2 domains aren't yet on the anycast infrastructure."

RSP services

Marc Groeneweg, Infrastructure & Security Architect at SIDN

Along with the .nl zone, the .politie, .amsterdam and .aw primary domains (belonging to the Dutch police, the City of Amsterdam and the country of Aruba) were the first to be transferred to the anycast infrastructure. With those domains, however, the DNS service forms part of a comprehensive RSP package: SIDN acts as a registry service provider, handing all technical aspects of domain operation.

Such services are the focus of increased attention now that ICANN has unveiled plans for a new top-level domain application window. This spring, for example, Dotlocal and SIDN announced that they were joining forces to facilitate the registration of top-level domains for Dutch regions and corporations. Dotlocal is handling the marketing and organisation, while SIDN handles the infrastructural aspects. "Adding another top-level domain to our anycast infrastructure is easy for us," says Marc Groeneweg. "It's simply a question of modifying the configuration, which is refreshed on a weekly basis anyway."

Continuity

The primary infrastructure underpinning the .cw domain is currently in transition, explains Leendert Pengel, Manager of the Centre for Digital Learning at the University of Curaçao (UoC) and responsible for the .cw domain. "We had an acute continuity problem when the provider of the IPAM appliance that our primary DNS duns on told us that they were withdrawing support." Although the .cw zone has fewer than 1,000 domain names, those names include those used by various Aruban government entities, financial institutions, educational institutions, and local and international companies.

"Our relationship with SIDN goes back to 2010, when I first met Roelof Meijer [SIDN's CEO] at an ICANN meeting. That was also a period of transition, from the now defunct .an top-level domain (for the Netherlands Antilles) to the .cw domain. SIDN then took on the technical operation of Aruba's .aw domain, and we subsequently stayed in contact with a view to seeing whether there was any scope for collaboration or making use of SIDN's infrastructure."

IPv6 and DNSSEC

Portret van Leendert Pengel, manager van het Center for Digital Learning bij de Universiteit van Curaçao dr. Moises da Costa Gomez (UoC)
Leendert Pengel, manager van het Center for Digital Learning bij de Universiteit van Curaçao

"At that time, we used our own systems for the .cw zone, which were also used for the .an zone," continues Pengel. "Those systems were operated in partnership with UTS, as the company was then called, who also provided the UoC's internet infrastructure. Following UTS's takeover by the access and hosting service provider Flow, and with our primary server software system reaching the end of its life, we decided to move our secondary DNS service to SIDN as the first step towards a more robust .cw domain."

"We're currently setting up alternative secondary servers for the .cw zone. They'll run alongside the UoC's servers at the local Blue NAP Americas data centre, but we already have other secondary servers off the island. We're also looking at the possibility of setting up new secondary servers in data centres operated by Flow and Digicel. The whole set-up has to be up and running before the end of the year. Once everything's in place, we'll also have access to IPv6- and DNSSEC services."

A digital hub for the Caribbean

"So far, we've mainly used the UoC and Flow internet infrastructures," adds Pengel. "With the changes we've already made and what we've got planned, the aim is to move towards a more robust approach that will enable us to continue fulfilling our accountability commitments to ICANN. We're looking to partner in the Blue NAP Americas data centre initiative, which will involve creation of a digital hub for the Caribbean, hopefully attracting additional commercial hosting activities to the local data centre. However, before we start promotion activities, we want to comprehensively modernise our basic infrastructure."

"As well as a robust infrastructure, commercial users expect a secure, modern administrative environment in which they can manage their own domain names (a DNS management option). Replacement of the primary DNS will also enable us to provide a modern service, where people can register domain names and manage their registrations online themselves. And, for the hosting, we're working on a partnership with the Blue NAP Americas data centre to supplement our existing relationship with Flow."

"The earthquake that hit Haiti a few years back impressed on me just how important redundancy and reliable secondary servers are," asserts Pengel. "Even though Haiti's whole telecoms infrastructure was destroyed, the .ht domain didn't go down."