webmaster tips

This is why domain names don’t get renewed on time

This post is an excerpt from our white paper – “12 Things Every Domain Owner Needs to Know“.

Back in 2014, I embarked on a journey to find the worst of the worst of domain expirations. I was shocked to find some large corporations among them and I had no choice but to include them on our “all-time list”. Some people contacted me with a few notable mentions I missed, and some people chimed in with their knowledge on why that might have happened in the first place.

Months went by, a conference here, a Skype call there, and I ended up with a list of 11 common reasons why domain owners fail to renew their domain name.

In case you would like to watch a video about this topic, I recorded this just for the occasion.

Why do we forget to renew our domain name?

If you know something I haven’t included in this list, or you lost a domain name and now you are angry, don’t be afraid to share your story in the comment section. It might help somebody on the other side of the world or your first-door neighbor.

  1. Forgetting which email is listed as the owner
  2. Indecisiveness on whether to renew the domain name or not
  3. Ignoring the notification email from the registrar
  4. Missing out (due to the spam box or other reasons) on the registrar notification email
  5. Person that was responsible (and his email) left the company
  6. Domain owner doesn’t control the email listed as the owner
  7. Domain owner forgets completely that he owns the domain (could be he/she registered with a registrar he/she doesn’t usually use)
  8. Owner forgot to renew the domain where his email was on (the email can’t work without the original domain name)
  9. Owner forgets to set up email forwarding from “email on WHOIS” to “email he/she reads”
  10. Domain owner doesn’t have an “auto-renew” option on the domain name
  11. Credit card on file is expired, so the “auto-renew” never takes place


Another great way of decreasing the chances of domain expiration is by registering the domain name for the next ten years. If you are serious about your business $100 shouldn’t pose a great expense, and the risk is reduced significantly in the next 10 years.

Find more tips like this in our free white paper “Domain Disclosure: Dirty Dozen“.

GoranDuskic

Goran Duskic has been the Founder and CEO of WhoAPI Inc. since 2011, a company that specializes in developing APIs, including the well-known Whois API. He started his career in internet entrepreneurship in 2006 and has co-founded several online businesses, including a web hosting company that he later sold. Goran's work primarily involves creating practical API solutions to meet technological needs.

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