Creation Date

The creation date is when the current registration of a domain began. It's where domain age comes from, and buyers put real weight on it. A name created in 1998 has a story. A name created last Tuesday doesn't.

The catch is that it only covers the current run. If a domain dropped in 2015 and somebody re-registered it in 2016, the creation date says 2016, and the fifteen years before that are invisible in WHOIS. The Wayback Machine and a WHOIS history service can fill in the gap.

It also doesn't reset when a domain changes hands by transfer or push. Buy an aged domain properly and the age comes with it. Let it drop and re-register it, and you've bought a brand-new domain with an old name.