Be on the lookout for that renewal invoice from your domain name registration provider (registrar). Sure, we all miss a bill sometimes, but forgetting about your domain name could end up being more costly than you might realize.
These days, there are a growing number of companies that specialize in buying up domain names. Sometimes they provide a “back-ordering” service to consumers, and sometimes they just purchase the domains as a broker and attempt to resell them to their previous owners or other interested parties. The common practice is that an automated program will peruse the Internet’s WHOIS records for soon-to-expire domain names, and as soon as a name is available for registration again, it is snapped up like an unsuspecting fish in a bear-ridden stream.
Remember, only one party in the entire World Wide Web can own a certain domain name. If you lose yours, and someone else gets it, you might be forced to rethink your name and register something completely different. That means changing your website address, changing your email addresses, and reprinting business cards.
The best way to prevent this is to stay on top of your registration bill and know exactly when your domain name is due for renewal. Pay it up in advance, maybe even for several years at a time.
Also, know your registrar (for example, SiteReserve.com). Some registration providers have some sneaky marketing tactics that confuse domain owners into transferring services to them or signing up for new domains with different extensions. For example, one company sends out “official” looking letters with an urgent message about “securing” a domain that is conveniently similar to the one you already own – but with a .us or .biz extension.
If you did forget and suddenly realize that your website is offline because the domain name recently expired, don’t panic just yet. There is typically a grace period – usually about 20 to 30 days – where the domain is “on hold” for the current owner, giving you a chance to renew it at your usual rate.
But, be quick about that renewal! You really don’t want your domain name to go into the next phase: “redemption period”. This is the stage when your domain name has already been deleted out of your registrar’s database, and now it is out there in limbo-land. While you can still acquire it at this point, it is going to be expensive, often around $100 or more with the included “redemption fees”. This phase is typically about 40 days.
If you find yourself in a real pickle – maybe you went on an African Safari and forgot to come back to work for a few months – and your domain name was indeed snatched by a back-ordering robot, there might still be hope.
Did you trademark your name? Is your domain name an obvious representation of your trademarked or copyrighted business? Try contacting the registrar responsible for the latest domain record (do a WHOIS search to find out the sponsoring registrar and their email address), and explain that you need to acquire your trademarked domain name back. Sometimes they are able to release the domain name and you can then register it in your name again. But there is most likely more than one domain brokerage waiting in the wings, so you may need to make 2 or 3 of these requests to different registrars before you have a chance to place the order.