Techie Views

When an Internet domain is about to expire, the registrar will usually start to notify the domain owner from 3 months before the actual expiry date. Once the expiry date starts to approach and a renewal has not been affected the notifications will start to be sent out on a more frequent basis. But what happens if the domain is not renewed on the expiry day?

Usually this is what happens:

(i) After a domain expires, most registrars have a grace period of 1 – 45 days, during which time the previous domain owner can reactivate the domain by simply renewing it. The grace period is not the same for all registrars and there is no guaranteed grace period so it is recommended that you check this with your registrar.

(ii) After the grace period is over, the domain is deleted from the registrar database. The domain is held for an additional 30 days (Redemption Period) by the registry. Note that this only applies to .com, .net, and .org domain names and that there is usually a fee of around EUR 120 – 250 (depending on registry, domain and exchange rate) to the registry to recover the domain.

(iii) This is followed by 5 more days (Pending Delete status), after which the domain will be released for anyone to purchase after that time.

Note that for .EU domains the procedure is different:

(i) As soon as the EU domain expires it is put in to a quarantine for 40 days – while in the quarantine it can be restored to the original owner at a higher cost than the standard renewal would have been. For example GoDaddy charges $US 80 plus the normal renewal fee.

(ii) After these 40 days if the EU domain is not restored the domain is released and is available for anybody (within the EU) to register again.

As you can see the procedure can be very different for specific domains so it is recommended that you always check with your registrar the policies which apply for your particular domains. The best policy is to renew the domain in time (unless you really wish to not renew it) because if the domain expires and you still want it, you will either have to pay a hefty additional fee or else wait until it is released again to the public. Although some people might prefer to wait for this to happen (instead of paying the additional fee) this is usually not recommended because apart from the fact that your domain (and associated website and email) will be offline for at least 40 days, once the domain becomes available it might be purchased immediately by someone else!

For more information related to domain registration issues:

(i) Visit this page: http://www.ctrlhosting.com
(ii) Click on FAQ.