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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Your Domain Name Has Expired - What Can You Do

If you are a webmaster or site owner then you will have a domain name, or a url, which is the address that people type into their browsers to view your website. This is basically the same as your front door on your home, which means that it is the access point to your website as without it - you do not have a website that can be found or accessed by the general public.

If you have a domain name that has expired, don't panic immediately because all is not lost because you actually have more time than you might think.

If a renewal request is not received from your registrar, then Nominet will send you a renewal reminder by email as long as you are talking about a.co.uk or a.uk domain name. You have 30 days to arrange for your registrar to renew the domain name or you can do this yourself if you buy your domains or store them with a domain registrar or host.

If Nominet do not receive a renewal request for your domain name within 30 days of the expiry date, the domain name in question will then be suspended. At this point, it does not mean it's lost forever or back on "general sale". You can contact Nominet and try to save your domain name before it goes back onto the market, but you must act quickly at this point to make sure you do retain the rights to the domain name.

If you then forget to do this or miss the time period, your domain name will then be cancelled 60 days after suspension if they have still not received a renewal instruction for your domain name from your registrar or your domain registrar. This means that you will not be able to get this domain name back unless you can quickly grab it when it goes back on sale after the cancellation has processed.

Do bear in mind that if your domain name is quite old, has history and has had a site connected, there will be domain catchers set up ready to grab your domain name when it expires, so unless you act quickly then you really can kiss goodbye to your domain name for ever, which is a stunning blow for any webmaster that has a good history with the same name.

It is always best to make sure that you renew your domain name at least two weeks before it is set to expire, because if you do not, you are running the risk of losing the domain name for ever.

The company you registered your domain with will usually have the option to auto renew, dependant on your credit card or payment method still being valid, so if you are of a forgetful nature make sure that you turn this option on when you buy the domain name so that they can do all of the hard work for you.

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