
Dashboard widget on Dashboard → Home. Days until expiry, registrar, nameservers, and TLS.
Domain Monitor is proactive protection for the domain this WordPress site runs on. It watches expiry, hijacking signals, and the outages that follow, from the dashboard you already open. It does not need a Notify.domains account.
If the domain expires, nameservers move, or the certificate lapses, the site is unreachable even when WordPress itself is fine. Registrar reminder mail often goes to a former employee, a privacy proxy, or the agency that built the site and no longer has the contract. The people who log into WordPress are the ones who get blamed.
Once a day it:
A dashboard widget is on by default. Email goes to the WordPress admin address (Settings General).
It cannot check the domain while WordPress is down. It is not an HTTP uptime monitor. Quiet sites that never get traffic may skip a day because of wp-cron. A-record changes are not emailed (CDNs rotate those). Cloudflare edge certificates are labeled and not treated as origin expiry.
If you also want ccTLD coverage, monitoring that keeps running when WordPress cannot, or alerts when this live domain is listed for sale on a marketplace or auction, sign up at Notify.domains. That is optional. The plugin is useful on its own.
This plugin connects to public internet services so it can show registration expiry, DNS, and TLS status for the domain in Settings General. Checks run from your WordPress host. The plugin does not route traffic through Notify.domains.
No WordPress users, posts, comments, cookies, or the admin email address are sent to these services. The identifiers sent are the site domain and TLS hostname from Settings General, plus a User-Agent string that includes the plugin name, plugin version, and WordPress version.
What it is: IANA publishes which RDAP server answers for each TLD. The plugin downloads that public index from https://data.iana.org/rdap/dns.json.
What is sent and when: Nothing about your domain. Only a request for the bootstrap file, about once per week (cached). If the bootstrap cannot be fetched, the plugin uses built-in RDAP fallbacks for common TLDs.
IANA is operated by ICANN Public Technical Identifiers (PTI): privacy policy, ICANN privacy policy.
What it is: Registration expiry, status, registrar name, and nameservers come from the RDAP server IANA lists for that TLD (or a built-in fallback when the bootstrap is unavailable).
What is sent and when: The monitored domain name is included in the RDAP request URL, about once per day (or when you click Check now). Which operator receives the query depends on the TLD. Built-in fallbacks in the plugin include:
.com, .net, .cc, .tv, .name): RDAP policy, privacy policy, terms of service.org): privacy notice.info, .me, .biz, .io, .co, .shop, and other Identity Digital TLDs): privacy policy, terms of use.app, .dev, .page): privacy policy, RDAP terms.xyz, .online, .site): privacy policy, terms and conditions.de): data privacy statement.nl): privacy statement.uk, .co.uk): privacy notice.ca): privacy policy.au, .com.au): privacy policy, terms and conditions.ai): privacy policyFor other TLDs, IANA’s bootstrap points to the authoritative registry operator; that operator’s RDAP service receives the domain name in the request. Consult that operator’s website for its terms and privacy policy.
What it is: Nameserver, A, AAAA, and MX records are read from public DNS resolvers over HTTPS.
What is sent and when: The domain name as a DNS query, about once per day (or when you click Check now). The plugin tries Cloudflare DNS-over-HTTPS (https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query) first, then Google Public DNS (https://dns.google/resolve) if Cloudflare does not answer.
Cloudflare: 1.1.1.1 resolver privacy, website terms, privacy policy
Google Public DNS: terms of service, privacy policy
What it is: The plugin opens a TLS connection to this site’s own hostname on port 443 and reads the certificate expiry. That is not a third-party monitoring service; it is the same public hostname visitors already reach.
What is sent and when: The site’s TLS hostname from Settings General, only to that hostname on your server (or CDN edge), about once per day (or when you click Check now). No data is sent to a separate TLS monitoring vendor.
What it is: Optional links to Notify.domains (trial signup, contact, ccTLD coverage) in the settings screen footer and upgrade card.
What is sent and when: Nothing is sent in the background. Links open only if someone clicks them. The trial link may include the monitored domain as a URL parameter.
Notify.domains: terms of service, privacy policy
Results are stored in this WordPress database (nddm_snapshot and related options). Email alerts are sent with wp_mail to the WordPress admin address. Uninstalling the plugin deletes that stored data. WordPress.org user: notifydomains.