An expired domain is the most avoidable serious problem in hosting, and the most expensive to undo.
What happens immediately
The domain stops resolving. Your website disappears and your email stops arriving - not gradually, but at once. To anyone looking, the business has vanished.
The stages afterwards
- Grace period. For a short time it can usually be renewed at the normal price.
- Redemption. Still recoverable, but at a substantially higher fee set by the registry, not by us.
- Released. It goes back on the market, and anyone may register it. At that point it is gone, and no amount of money guarantees getting it back.
The exact periods vary by ending. Do not plan around them - plan around not needing them.
If it has just expired
Open a request under Billing & Accounts immediately. Every day matters, and the cost rises as it goes.
Avoiding it
- Keep the contact email one you actually read - expiry warnings go there.
- Check expiry dates under Domains and put them in your calendar.
- Pay renewal invoices when they arrive rather than at the deadline.
- Register important domains for several years at a time.
Domains someone else registered for you
If a former developer or agency holds the registration, sort that out now, while relations are good. Recovering a domain from a business you have lost touch with is genuinely difficult.
