Patent US 8,090,693

Methods and systems are provided for maintaining and accessing a whois database. In one embodiment, modifications to a registrar database that includes information about domain names are tracked, and based on the tracked modifications, one or more records that include modified information about the domain names are identified. Unique identifiers for the identified one or more records are determined and are used to reflect the modifications in the whois database. The modifications are tracked on a real-time basis and are reflected in the whois database on an hourly or a real-time basis.