Referrals

Referrals are not a formal mechanism in RDAP but are often used to link a resource in one RDAP server to another. They are in wide-spread use within the gTLD services to allow a gTLD registry to point a client at a domain name in a gTLD registrar.

Referrals work using the links data structure when the type attribute of the link is set to the RDAP media type “application/rdap+json”.

{
  "value" : "https://registry.example/domain/foo.example",
  "rel"   : "related",
  "type"  : "application/rdap+json",
  "href"  : "https://registrar.example/domain/foo.example"
}

The ICANN Response Profile specifies that these referrals be made using the related relationship type.

The soon-to-be RIR Search will define referrals for “up”, “down”, “top”, “bottom”.