Follow these two tips to avoid having the same thing happen to you.
I almost lost a good domain name due to expiration this week. I learned some lessons, so I’m recounting what happened to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
I won the domain name in a NameJet auction nearly a year ago and the domain was at Register.com. It’s a fairly good domain name; I had two different inquiries on the domain last year including one from a large company.
Yesterday I received a DomainTools registrant alert that showed that the domain changed from my company name to Perfect Privacy, LLC. That’s the proxy service for Web.com registrars Register.com and Network Solutions.
Concerned, I went to my Register.com account and saw that the domain expired three days ago.
I do not recall receiving any of the ICANN-mandated notices from Register.com about my domain expiring. This doesn’t mean they didn’t send them. Most email from Register.com lands in my spam box because they send so much promotional email–one per day!
These promotional emails often start with “Urgent” or “Alert” even when it’s not important. It’s just a sales pitch for search engine optimization. So it’s easy to overlook them.
Regardless of whether they sent the notices or not, here are two tips to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
1. Use an alert service like DomainTools or DomainIQ to get notifications when your Whois changes. Unfortunately, GDPR means your info isn’t always in Whois, but you can also track domain status changes that will alert you that your domain has expired.
2. Transfer domains you win in expired domain auctions to your main registrar on a regular schedule. For example, set up a once-a-quarter reminder on your calendar to transfer domains.
Kevin Murphy says
This post is just begging for a third bullet point.
Michael Klahr says
You can always add a reminder to your calendar..
DomainBoss says
Never happened so far and I just use excel/pivot tables to keep track of all domains.
Bob McGough says
I’d like to know more about how you use pivot tables! Thanks.
Joe says
Auto renewal on every name my friend.
Tom says
Just make sure ur billing info is up to date and with register.com it is called safe renew and the promo emails u can stop those as well if you dont see the option in your account you can always call 24/7 and have them stopped fyi
Bob says
Why is it so hard to unsubscribe and then the only emails you will get is the truly important account related emails?
Murat says
Auto renewal came out around 300 B.C, you should start using it at least on your “good” domains.
Andrew Allemann says
I use it for all of my domains at GoDaddy. Register.com is just a temporary stop for domains won on NameJet.
Alan Dodd says
Yes and take an inventory every ten+ months! Working off the inventory for renewals does the trick.
Optimizi says
We use sync in Keep & Boomerang in Outlook to remind us about domain expiries.
Mark Abahi says
Thanks for letting me know about is good idea.
Cyndy says
When paying it renewing a domain name, nothing stops you from renewing more than 2 years at a stretch. It helps some too I think.
Angel Ashiq says
I never get any promotional email from register.com. Is it a reseller account?
Joern says
Auctioning domains off after expiration is a standard practice in place at most registrars. Why do you consider this to be a namesilo issue?
Joern says
[note:] this was a reply to a post no longer available.
Tom Rodman says
I just have all of my domain expys in my calendar, recurring annually, work a one week advance reminder
Patrick B says
You work on renewals more than one week advance, especially if you have CCTLD as they tend to take longer in many cases.
PageHowe.com says
thanks for sharing andrew, been there and done that. i think the autorenew strategy many talk about above, is obviously turned upside down when dealing with
register.com and web, its a $39.99 renewal, plus who knows what extras they “say” you agreed to in a TOC update.. and im seeing auto r kickin way to sonn, rebel 30-60 days??
the domain tool is an effective tool, GPDR still puzzles me.. these offshore designing firms can get my whois info when i register a name, but the auctions houses cant so i need txt record.??
so im with the group that uses an excel file. you dont know whats missing unless you know what your supposed to have.
Page
alternativesite says
I am using auto debet
Andrew Rabbitt says
Thanks for sharing.
We make use of auto-renew as others have mentioned on our primary domains and have are using our DNS provider’s API with Google Sheets to monitor our domains on a regular basis (when iCal tells us to).
You can read about how we use the API with Sheets over at the DNSimple Blog post from December 12, 2018, if you’re interested.
Nothing is worse than losing a high value domain. I had the opportunity to experience the auction at NamesCon here in Vegas earlier this month and would have been very upset if I had won any of those domains, only to lose them due to not getting my renewal notice.
Again, thanks for sharing.
Andrew
The Heir says
I am also using auto debet
JOSHUA says
Fix it on autorenewal So as not to forget