The first rule of domain expiration for any domain that I care about is *** Do Not Let My Domain Expire! ***. I can manually extend my domain registration at any time. I can also use auto-renewal, which should save me as long as I make sure to keep my payment information up to date. I do both. So, I rely on auto-renewal to save me only if I forget to renew manually – which hasn’t happened, yet (*).
But what if I forget to renew, and auto-renewal fails for some reason – maybe I also forgot to update my credit card information. What happens next is highly variable, and depends on the processes used by my registrar. My registrar could simply delete or take over my domain the minute it expires. This doesn’t usually happen with major registrars though, as it would be a bad business practice. The process and timeline described here is based on the various registrars that I have used but is not exact for any given registrar and Is Not To Be Relied On (sorry for yelling). Again the process is highly variable depending on the registrar and may vary over time even for a given registrar. Why ICANN doesn’t standardize the rules for domain expiration flabbergasts me. The practice of many registrars to auction or otherwise sell expiring domains angers me – it is a blatant conflict of interest, a flagrant violation of fiduciary responsibility, and I have no idea how it can possibly be legal – but apparently it is.
Anyway, a typical not-to-be-relied-on timeline is …
- Day 0: Domain registration period expires.
- Day 1 – 30: Grace Period. Domain is suspended, website does not function, email does not function. However, I can still renew the domain at the regular renewal rate, no extra fees or penalties.
- Day 31-60: Redemption Period. I can still reclaim the domain, but at substantial extra cost (typically around $100) in addition to the renewal fee.
- Day 61-70: Domain may be auctioned or otherwise sold by the registrar. This step is especially variable. Some registrars refrain from this dastardly practice. Some conduct it in parallel with the Redemption Period. Worst case, to reclaim my domain at this point I need to bid and win the auction, or pay whatever arbitrary price is demanded by the registrar – could be hundreds or thousands of dollars.
- Day 71 -75: Pending Deletion. I can’t do anything to reclaim my domain during this period. I have no idea what the registrar does – perhaps just mocks me.
- Day 76: Domain is returned to the pool. I can now try to re-register at the regular rate. But if someone registers it first – it is gone.
(*) Rambling side notes: (1) I once lost a domain due to date confusion. The registrar (Freenom) is based in a metric country and uses the date format dd/mm/yyyy which is misread as mm/dd/yyyy. So, my domain expired not on July 6, 2018 as I expected, but on June 7, 2018. In this case there was no grace or redemption period, my domain just went back to the pool. I had cleverly selected a domain name no one else wanted, so I simply reclaimed it.
(2) I sometimes let a domain expire on purpose, taking a chance on being able to reclaim it from the pool. I’ve registered a few of the crazier tld names, like dot life and dot top, that have a very inexpensive registration fee but a *much* higher renewal fee. I register these if I think of a catchy name – like the-meaning-of.life – just to play around with. I don’t want to pay the high renewal fee, so I let it expire and wait (70 days in this case) for it to return to the pool, taking a chance on being able to reclaim it. I’ve gotten away with it so far. So, the site is up for a year, then down for 70+ days, then back up, repeat. If I ever get substantial traffic (not expected) I’ll consider splurging on the renewal fee.
