Don’t Let Your Domain Name Expire!

It’s easy to lose your domain name if you don’t pay attention to the renewal notices that come in your inbox. Usually, web host companies start sending these notices about 90 days from the date that the domain name is to expire. It’s a bad feeling to go to your site and all you see is a 404 page.

So how do we avoid this problem?

First of all, most people don’t keep their domain registrar in the loop concerning emails and contact information that changed during the course of the registration period. For most domain name owners, they have the attitude that they will get to it someday. The last time that the domain registrar hears from the person that owns the domain is the first day that they purchased the domain. How unfortunate! When your web site stops working, that’s when reality hits. You haven’t paid your hosting fees or haven’t renewed your domain name. Renewing your domain name is the hardest deal because there is nothing written in stone saying that you might get that name back.

Some registrars honor a 30 day "redemption period" allowing expired domains to be redeemed. It may be possible to save the registration within 30 days following expiration by contacting registrars during 30 day domain redemption periods but you have to act quickly. If there is a problem, check out this link at the ICANN organization on redeeming domain names.

www.icann.org/bucharest/redemption-topic.htm

So how does a domain owner find out who their registrar is if they've forgotten? Simple WHOIS inquiries will tell you everything the registrar knows about your domain. Public WHOIS records show the owner's contact email, street address, phone and fax numbers. But that's not all; it also shows the current registrar, DNS servers, and the creation and expiration dates of the domain name. Keep track of what’s going on with your domain name so you won’t have headaches as far as trying to redeem your URL name down the road.