Have you ever been to your website and you can’t get to it? No? Well, let’s try and avoid that shall we! However, if you have ever let this little piece of admin slip through the cracks, all is not lost! Here’s the low down.
Remind yourself
However you would normally remind yourself to do stuff, that is how you should remind yourself to renew your domain, earth shattering, we know. Seriously though, as soon as you purchase or renew your domain, put a reminder in your calendar or to do list app to make sure it’s not forgotten. It’s easy to say now that you would never get another email address, or forget something like this, but there is always risk of those reminder emails going to junk, new credit card numbers being issued, or ‘old’ email addresses not being monitored.
Buy additional time
When it comes to renewing, there are usually options to purchase extended periods of time like two or five years. It means you wont have to think about renewing as often, but you will still need to refer to the “Remind Yourself” clause from above!
What if it does expire?
If your domain name renewal does happen to slip through the cracks, all is not lost. There is a grace period that exists for each domain name. Usually you will be given a few months to claim it back, but there are fees involved. Check with your individual registrar, but for the first month or so you can pay the bill, plus a late fee and get back up to speed without many issues. As time goes on, fees will usually increase.
Once the grace period is over, things get more complicated. Expired domains can be auctioned off to the highest bidder and if you get outbid, you wont be able to renew.
So, lets all try NOT to get to that point and let someone else benefit from all of your hard work by taking a part of your business away, and just schedule and pay your renewal, ok?