What to know about Domain name expirations: A Crucial Aspect of Online Business
As you establish your online presence, it’s essential to grasp the concept of domain name expirations to avoid potential pitfalls.
What is a Domain Name?
A website domain name is the primary online address that identifies your business on the World Wide Web. It serves as a virtual billboard, showcasing your brand, location, and offerings. Without a domain name, your website is essentially invisible, as it’s both the storefront sign and the entrance to your online shop.
Do Domain Names Expire?
Yes, domain names do expire. After selecting and registering the perfect domain name for your business – a process that requires significant time, effort, and investment – it’s yours until the expiration date. If you fail to renew it, your domain name will become available for purchase by the highest bidder, potentially leading to:
- Loss of brand recognition
- Disruption of online presence
- Damage to your business reputation
The Consequences of Domain Name Expiration
Imagine building your brand around your domain name, only to have it expire and be sold to another party. This could result in:
- Loss of customer trust
- Decreased online visibility
- Financial losses
Don’t let this happen to your business. Stay informed about domain name expirations and take proactive steps to protect your online presence
The Devastating Consequences of Domain Name Expiration
Domain name expiration can be a catastrophic event for website owners, resulting in a loss of brand recognition, customer trust, and online visibility. It’s essential to understand the reasons behind domain name expiration and take proactive measures to prevent it.
Why Domain Names Expire Without Your Knowledge
Domain name registration is temporary, and overlooking this fact can lead to expiration. Common reasons include:
– Missed Renewal Reminders: Failing to receive or ignoring renewal notices can lead to expiration.
– Auto-Renewal Not Enabled: Not switching to auto-renewal can result in expiration if you forget to manually renew.
Outdated billing information: When you lose a credit card, or it expires naturally, it is easy to forget all of the sites, services, and subscriptions you have tied into that specific card and had previously set to auto-bill. In such cases, the last thing on your mind will be to update the billing information on a domain you rented years ago and then set to auto-renew. If you do lose or obtain a new credit card, be sure to comb through your bills and see what will need to be updated with proper billing. With Domain.com, if your auto-renew runs into an issue with billing, we will try multiple times to send alerts and reminders that the payment was unsuccessful and that the billing must be updated in order to prevent the domain name from expiring. You may need to manually renew your domain if it is less than 15 days before expiration.
Multiple domain providers: The more you spread out your domains, the easier it is to forget about them or mix them up, especially if you have invested in a plethora of different website domain names. It is all too possible to have a domain name slip through the cracks and expire because they were scattered across registrars. At Domain.com, we suggest you consolidate your domains into one service. By doing so, you have all of your domains concentrated in one place and linked to one billing account. It makes it much easier to make payments, check domain name expiration dates, or make alterations from a centralized platform.
Contact email connected to domain: At Domain.com, we encourage you to begin using your brand new domain email address as your primary email source. This is a great thing, except when it comes to domain expirations. If you select your domain email in order to manage the domain name it is linked to, you create a dilemma in that if you forget the account’s password, you will be unable to enter the email in order to retrieve the forgotten password. Further, if the expiration date does pass, you will not be able to use that email during the renewal grace period. For this reason, you should think about adding a secondary email address to your account.
An expired organizational email address: A problem we encounter all too often with the process behind registering a domain name is that a person will use a work or school email account that requires them to still be actively involved with those organizations in order to access the email account, such as a work, or club email. So, if a person registers a domain name with such an email then graduates school or leaves their job, they will no longer have access to the email address associated with the domain name. In many cases, it will be impossible to be re-granted access to that email due to security issues or a deletion of the account as a whole. While it may still be possible to renew your domain without logging into the account, it makes life far harder on you and increases the likelihood that you miss a domain expiration alert.
Waited too long to renew: Even though they may have received ample renewal reminders or alerts, some people simply wait too long to renew their domain and pass the point where anything can be done to remedy the situation. On the day of expiration, be assured, you will lose the domain name ownership.
What happens when a domain expires?
There are a variety of steps that will occur during a domain name expiration:
Step 1:
Domain expiration alerts: Prior to domain name registration expiration, Domain.com will begin sending reminders to you via email. At least two alerts will be sent before expiration, and one within five days of expiration.
Step 2:
Domain name registration expires: If the domain has not been renewed by the owner prior to the expiry date, the domain’s status will be changed to what is called a Renewal Grace Period. Under this status, you can still renew the domain name without incurring additional fees for a grace period of thirty days. As early as one day after expiration, your domain name will be deactivated and replaced with a parking page indicating the domain name has expired, and other services you have associated with the domain name may no longer function.
Step 3:
Renewal grace period ends: Once this period ends, the expired domain name’s status is changed to Registrar Hold. During this thirty-day period, the original domain owner may pay a redemption fee as well as the renewal fee.
Step 4:
Registrar auction: While under the registrar hold status, the registrar tries to sell the domain name in an option auction to the highest bidder. If it does indeed sell, the highest bidder will then have to wait the full thirty days of the registrar hold before they own the domain name. If the original owner decides to renew during this period, the bidding fee is refunded and the original owner retains control of the domain name. If the original owner does not renew the domain name and the thirty days pass, the auction winner is transferred control of the domain name.
Step 4b:
Closeout sale: If the domain name is not purchased at auction or renewed by the original owner, a registrar will often list it as a closeout sale, where it can be bought for a cheaper ‘buy it now’ price, on top of the domain name registration fee. If a name is bought during a closeout sale, the registrar hold period remains applicable, which allows the original owner the opportunity to regain ownership within the thirty days.
Step 5:
Redemption period: After the registrar hold ends, and if the domain name has neither been purchased nor renewed, the domain name is released back to the registry. Upon release, the domain name is put under redemption period status, meaning it cannot be changed or deleted for thirty days. During this time period, the original owner can pay the redemption fee, plus the renewal fee in order to restore the website and the email.
Step 6:
End of registry grace period: If this grace period ends without the domain name being renewed, it will then be put under the status of pending delete. If no actions of restoration occur on the part of the original owner, registry or registrar, the domain will eventually be deleted. This deletion will then release that domain name back for general registration.
Keep your domain name and website up and running
Domain names play a crucial on the virtual marketplace. Choosing a creative domain name is a time-consuming and important aspect of giving your business the tools to thrive. Such an investment is essential for success, which is why a domain name expiration can be a demoralizing and business-crippling issue, that is only made worse if a competitor manages to snatch up your domain name. All the time and effort spent on building that brand and linking it to the domain name might be all for naught.
The best way to prevent this issue is to do everything in your power to prevent such a disaster from occurring in the first place. This includes regularly checking your email and spam folders for renewal notices, setting personal alerts of expiration, always ensuring that your domain’s billing info is up to date, and setting your account to auto-renew. If you take the right steps, you can save yourself a serious headache, so, do not be anything less than proactive when it comes to one of your domain names possibly expiring. With the right infrastructure in place, this should never be an issue!