If you want to create a website, but the domain name you want is already taken and you don't want to "fall back" on another domain ending or a different domain name, you still have a few options, including finding the current owner using the Whois so that you can make an offer on the domain name. The Whois is the directory for all the technical and contact information regarding domain names. A domain's listing in the Whois is created at the moment a registrar, like Gandi, completes the registration of a domain name on behalf of their customer. The Whois contains information about the registrar, the registration date, the expiration date, and above all, the last updated date, corresponding to the last time the domain name's registration was modified. A good way to tell whether a domain name is active or dormant is to contact the owner of the domain name. However, the whois is not always ideal, since it's not always kept up to date (if a contact has changed jobs, for example) but also because GDPR (the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation) prevents registrars from publishing full contact information for private individuals without their consent. You can try your luck contacting the organization or company listed, but nothing is certain. As a last resort, you can also try to contact the owner using the contact page of the website associated with the domain name.