What to do if your domain name has expired and you forgot to renew it ?
With the lives we lead, it’s very easy to forget to run errands, answer email or call someone back. In most cases, these oversights don’t have too much impact on our lives. At worst, you’ll go a day or two without your favorite drink.
But if you have a website that is one of your sources of income, you risk losing money if you forget to do a task, like renewing your subscriptions for example. Nowadays, everything is based on a subscription model on the Internet, whether it is your hosting or the services you use, etc. Gone are the days of one-time purchases of digital products.
It’s the same for domain names. Once you “buy” one, you own it for a defined period of time. Once its validity is over, it could slip through your fingers by a simple oversight. Today, we will see what to do do if your domain name has expired and you forgot to renew it.
Let’s go.
Why does a domain name expire ?
Let’s start with this question: why does a domain name expire? ? As with all online services, domain names are available through a subscription model. It means that you pay about ten euros per year to have your domain name.
Obviously, it is difficult to forget to pay for this kind of online service for the simple reason that the provider who offers you this service, in this case the domain name, will send you emails to remind you to renew it. This is a common and normal practice to avoid losing customers.
Domain names expire for different reasons:
- The website no longer works and the owner decides to close the store. As a result, the domain name is no longer used and is available for redemption.
- The company or the website changes its name or appellation, and the old domain name is no longer used.
- The website merges with another one to form a group and, therefore, the firm does not need the first domain name anymore.
- The owner has simply Forgot to renew your domain name and this one expires
There are other reasons that can be specific, but these four are the main ones for the expiration of domain names.
What to do when a domain name expires ?
The expiration of a domain name is not sudden. It’s not like you find yourself without a domain name for your website overnight. Before the due date arrives, service providers will contact you to remind you to renew your domain name, and some even offer you the possibility to renew it in advance.
This is a very common practice on the Internet, like web hosting, which is based on the same principle of subscription, and you should take a look at it’Take a look at this article before jumping to any online subscription with a hosting company.
Now, let’s say you skipped all the emails that were sent to you and your domain name has expired. What are your options to get it back ? Well, let’s go over that together. Keep in mind that the following differs from one domain name provider to another.
Easily renew the domain name for a period of about 1 month
It is possible to renew your domain name about 1 month after its expiration date. You may have to pay a late fee, but most providers do not do this for the first month. Google, for example, imposes a penalty if you renew your domain name after 45 days of its expiration. To renew it, simply log in to the provider’s website, search for your domain name and click on renew (or “Restore” in English).
Then you pay for the desired period and the domain name is yours again.
Renewing a domain name that has been deleted
In this case, we address the domain names that have been deleted manually or automatically. We won’t go into the why and how, but sometimes people delete a domain name and then regret it. Of course, you can imagine that you will have to pay renewal fees, in addition to the subscription fee for your domain name. At Google, you have up to 30 days to recover and renew a domain name that has been deleted.
Renewing a domain name that has been auctioned
After a certain period of inactivity on your part, a domain name is put up for auction to find a new owner. Here again, the period for auctioning varies from one provider to another and there is no common rule. In this case, you have two options:
- You participate in the auction to try to recover your domain name. Note that prices can go into the thousands of euros if the domain name is attractive.
- You wait for the end of the auction and hope that no one has made a bid’offers on your domain name. Obviously, this option is risky, especially if the domain name is attractive.
How to avoid the expiration of a domain name ?
In order to avoid all this trouble of losing your domain name, we advise you toactivate the automatic domain name renewal option. This option will allow you to keep your domain name even if you forget to renew it. Of course, you must enter a valid payment method so that this can be done automatically.
Otherwise, you have the option to read your emails and renew the domain name as soon as its expiration date approaches. If you are a person who tends to forget, we suggest you activate the automatic renewal.