Expired Domains Can Increase Your Bounce Rate
Depending on the effectiveness of the branded marketing efforts of the person or business who previously owned the domain, you might find your site attracting unwanted and irrelevant traffic. Say, for example, you purchase the domain letsgetskipping.com. If youre a waste removals company, youre likely seeking contractors or homeowners looking for waste clearance solutions. Youll focus your marketing on B2B channels and maybe do some link outreach to home clearance or construction sites to help customers and Google learn what it is your business is about.If the previous owner of the letsgetskipping.com domain was an online retailer of jumping ropes, say, their past marketing and link-outreach efforts also have a chance of sending search traffic your wayjust not the kind of customers you want. If these customers reach your site and find its not what they were looking for, theyll quickly leave your site and seek information elsewhere. This behaviour can be detrimental to the search rankings and visibility of your site, which can take a lot of time and effort to recover from.
Renewal Reminder Notices Turned Off
I know, I know, emails can be annoying sometimes, though, these emails can actually be important. Oftentimes, customers will opt out of receiving renewal reminder emails, only to one day see that their domain has unexpectedly expired because they never received a renewal reminder email. Upsetting, for sure, but hey we tried to warn you!
Much like enabling Auto Renew, opting into renewal reminders is as simple as selecting checkboxes. These are selected by default, so if youve deselected them we strongly urge you to opt back in.
Price Change Legacy Domains
TuCows, one of our domain registrars, occasionally changes the price of a top-level domain . When this happens, domains registered prior to the change won’t reflect the new price. Instead, you’ll continue to pay the original purchase price for the domain every time it renews.
If you registered one of these domains prior to January 11, 2021, you pay a different price than what’s listed on the domain name search page:
- .family
You May Like: How To Find Out Who Owns Domains
Domain Name Redemption Period
In this phase, you cant renew your expired domain with the regular price but you need to pay an additional fee around 80$. Some registrars they even put domain names in an auction when they enter in this stage. There are many people, sites and tools that searching for valuable expired domains! In some cases, those auctions reach many thousands of dollars as a final price.
The general rule is that the domain name redemption period lasts around 30 days.
When the period is close to the end some registrars will let you get your expired domain only if you enter an auction. For example, Godaddy has an 18-days only grace period, then 12 days redemption phase and lastly 11 days to get to an auction and compete with others for your expired domain.
Grace And Redemption Period
In fact, a domain that expires will fall into the grace period for 10 days up to two weeks. And during this period, this domain can be renewed at a specific price.
In case you have difficulties in renewing the domain, you need to ask for help from contact Support.
After a grace period finishes, this domain can join the redemption period and the length of that period varies, which means that this domain name can have a chance to be renewed, however, you have to pay for a $80.00 redemption fee besides the normal renewal price.
You had better note that domains can be added in the expired-domain auctions, in which other parties are able to bid the domain name. In case someone claims your domain, you cannot renew your domain. If you pay for reclaiming the domain out of this redemption and fail to do that, you will receive a refund.
Recommended Reading: Transfer Wix To Shopify
Typical Symptoms Of Expired Domain
An expired site name is a big problem if you have not had time to renew it. Lets take a look at what exactly is the threat of losing an expired address.
- If your domain has expired, there is information that there could be a leak of your personal information. The new owner gets access to the domain name and all the personal information that was used within that domain.
- You can lose everything you have been working on for a long time.
- Your site name can be bought out by cybercriminals who want to destroy your brand or business by framing you as a scam.
- A hostname can be bought out by your competitors, which will also be bad for your market opportunities.
Why Would You Want To Check When The Expiration Date Of A Domain Name Is
There are many reasons that you may wish to know when domain name is going to expire. Some of these reasons may include:
- If you are the owner of the domain name and wish to renew it.
- If you are not the owner and would like to register it once it expires.
- To extend the expiry date of an existing domain name.
- To ensure you have enough time to transfer to another domain registrar. Some domains are now allowed to be transferred within a certain time before expiry.
- and many more!
Also Check: Transfer Godaddy Domain To Wix
What Happens If My Domain Name Expires
Regardless of if your domain was registered with HostGator through Launchpad or eNom, you have a short grace period to pay for your domain name and keep it . After the grace period, LaunchPad and eNom domains will require an additional redemption fee. In addition, LaunchPad domains are susceptible to go to auction, creating the risk of losing the domain to another buyer.
Domains Registered with LaunchPad
All domain names registered in LaunchPad through will be put up for auction on the 36th day past expiration. If the domain has not had any bids, the owner has the option of purchasing the domain for a redemption fee of $75 plus the cost of the domain until the 30th day after expiration, when the domain is subject to deletion.
When the domain expires, the page will not resolve, and the domain’s name servers will look like the following :
expired1.hostgator.comexpired2.hostgator.com
Domains Registered with eNom
After 29 days of being expired, eNom domains enter the redemption period. At this point, eNom requires $75.00, plus the regular renewal fee to renew the domain name. HostGator will require you to pay this cost or register a different domain until the 36th day when the domain will no longer be available.
A WHOIS lookup will reveal that the domain expires in the future but was updated a day after it was renewed, and the name servers are changed. The name servers will automatically revert when the registration fee is paid.
Nominet Expired Domains Uk Couk Orguk Meuk Ltduk
What happens with those expired domains is really a pleasant situation from the domain owners perspective. You have 60 days after the expiration date to renew your domain with no redemption fee but only the normal renewal fee.
Domain goes typically offline after 30 days but you still have the option to recover the domain even 30 days after your domain goes offline .
Recommended Reading: Should I Buy My Domain Through Shopify
Domain Email Used In Account Information
Its exciting to start using your new custom domain email address as your primary email, and we think thats awesome except in one very specific case. If you use your domain email to manage the domain name its associated with, things will get very tricky if you ever forget your password, since you wont be able to access your email in order to retrieve your lost password. Plus, if you miss the expiry date, you wont have access to your email during the renewal grace period.
In other words, you wont be able to access your email address because theres no email address to access!
My Domain Name Has Just Expired Can My Registrar Require Me To Pay For A Renewal Before I Can Transfer The Domain Name To A New Registrar
No. You have the right to transfer an expired domain. Registrars are not allowed to deny a transfer due to expiration or non-renewal. .
However, if the current registrar has begun to delete your domain ) shows the domain in Redemption Grace Period, the name must be restored by your current registrar before it can be transferred. This may result in an additional fee, sometimes referred to as a redemption fee.
You May Like: Transferring Domain From Wix To Shopify
What If I Still Want The Domain
As you might have guessed from the process outlined above, there are a few options for reclaiming an expired domain name.
At that point, you can either renew the domain name , redeem the domain name , take your chances with the auction house, or purchase a backorder. Without a doubt, the safest route is to either renew your domain name immediately or pay to have it redeemed.
Keep Your Google Domains From Expiring
Preventing an issue is always much easier than finding a cure, and keeping your domain registration current is no exception.
Make sure to pay your renewal amount before the domain expires so you won’t have to worry about fighting against the clock to save an expired domain name.
If possible, set your account to auto-renew so that you don’t even have to think about it. Website ownership is hard work, but shortcuts like auto-renewal can keep your domain management process running smoothly.
You May Like: How Much For A Domain Name
Why Cant I Buy An Expired Domain
If theres an expired domain name that you want to buy, but couldnt its because of the following reasons:
Another reason for the unavailability of a domain name despite its expiration is the possibility of the name being involved in a trademark case.
If this would be the case, your chances of getting this domain name are slim, as whoever wins will most likely get the right to use that domain.
Should you want to buy an expired domain name, you may consider getting in touch with the person or organization that currently has rights over it and ask if you can buy it.
You may find information on who has rights over a domain via whois.com.
Should you decide to buy the rights, note that this agreement will not involve the registrar, and may cost you more than what it costs.
Expired Domains Can Earn Penalties For Spammy Backlinks
One long term goal for businesses buying expired domains is to build a high level of domain authority. Domain authority is largely determined by link metrics, the collective term referring to the criteria for ranking search resultsA domain that already has plenty of inbound links from other sites is considered to have high domain authority, because every link is considered an endorsement from one website to another. The more quality endorsements, the more authoritative, relevant and trusted your website will become in the eyes of search engines, and the higher it will rank.Search engines like Google have advanced ways of determining the value of inbound links to your site, these include relevancy ranking factors: links that are determined to be relevant are those that pass between domains and content that cover similar topics. Lets use the previous example. If all the previous links to your new domain were previously in the context of purchasing jumping ropes, thats largely irrelevant to your waste removal business.Whats more, if a domain has been penalised in the past for spammy link-building practices, your new site might inherit that from the domain too.
Read Also: Cost To Buy A Domain
Domain Expiration Process Grace Period & Expiration Date
When your web address reaches its expiration date, it does not immediately disappear into the void.
Most registrars follow a process like this one to give registrants ample opportunity to renew their domain:
If the domain does not sell in the auction within ten days, the registrar will return the web address name to the registry. At this time, the owner can attempt to redeem it or register it again.
Though some web address owners are able to buy an expired domain after it has gone up for auction, the vast majority lose their web address forever at this stage.
Expired domain auctions are highly competitive. If your domain name has developed any value on the web, it could sell in the auction almost immediately and for several thousand dollars.
If your domain name sells in the auction, the buyer may offer to sell it back to you for a much higher price than you initially paid for it.
However, they may also keep the domain for their own uses, meaning you may never be able to get it back.
How To Vet An Expired Domain
- Check to see if the domain and/or brand has any sort of bad reputation. A simple Google search will likely suffice, or check to see what kind of site the domain was previously associated with using the Wayback Machine. A domain checker site like whois can also give you details of IP addresses that were previously associated with a domain.
- Check their backlinks using a tool like Moz Open Search Explorer or Link Research Tools to run a backlink report. Is the profile full of nothing but spam? You should also check to see if any other domains 301 redirect to the domain.
- Make sure the domain is clean. Norton Safe Web is an initiative by Norton security that tracks websites for malicious codes and malware. You can check if a domain has previously been blacklisted for malware using the resource.
It is vital you perform these checks to help you understand whether a domain has been associated with bad practices in the past. Spammy content, dodgy backlinks, malwares and malicious code damage the authority of a domain, which is tough and not always timely to regain in the internet world. Remember, brand new domains are being registered every day, and our unique business names each come with a perfect .com domain.
Don’t Miss: How Much Do Domain Names Cost