Imagine a prospect clicked through to your website and saw this…

Example domain registration expired error message

Even worse, you didn’t even know your website’s domain had expired.

The risks:

  1. If you use an email address with the domain, you wont be able to receive/send emails — possibly missing out on business opportunities.
  2. Someone who has been tracking that domain may attempt to quickly snatch it from you.
  3. Some domain registrar companies will charge a fee to reactivate. (e.g., GoDaddy:
    “If you do not renew your domain(s) during the 12-day Renewal Grace Period, you may incur a fee of $80.00 in addition to the domain renewal fee.”)

What to do:

  • Perform a WHOIS (“Who is”) lookup. Every domain registrar website usually has one. You can try these (i.e., GoDaddy, Register.com, NetworkSolutions
  • Make sure all the contact info for Admin, Billing and Technical contacts looks correct. Update if necessary.
  • Check that you have the domain registrar account login information and test that it actually works.
  • Consider setting your registration to “Auto Renew” to prevent accidentally missing the expiration date; and mke sure your domain registrar has your current credit card on file.

So take a few moments to make sure you know when important dates are approaching and that you can react quickly in an emergency. I hope you find this helpful.
-Roland