Expired Domains Explained
July 24, 4 CommentsI wrote this guide to expired domains a few years ago, in order to help newcomers to the domaining industry. Given I’m still getting questions via email and posts on forums, I thought I’d post it up on Domainer Income. Hope it helps.
Purchasing A Domain Name
Anyone can register a domain name. The person or entity (company) that registers a domain name is typically called a registrant. The company that sells you a domain name is called the registrar. For example: Godaddy or Moniker. The company that manages the top level domain is called a registry. For example: Verisign manages .com
Domain Expiration
A domain name is registered for a period of time. Depending on the type of domain name, it can be registered for up to 10 years. Once registered, the domain name becomes active. You can see the status of a domain name by viewing the whois information and looking at the status field. Note that there are a variety of different status codes (which is beyond the scope of this article).
In the first five days from the date of registration, a domain can be deleted by the registrar and the money refunded to the entity who purchased the domain name. This is called “Domain Tasting“. Most registrars do not allow you to do this; those that do, usually charge you a fee.
Domain Renewal
Lets say you register a domain name for 1 year. Usually 30 days before a domain expires, the registrar will send you a reminder notice, asking you to renew. In this example, if you don’t renew and the 1 year period is up, the domain name changes status to Redemption Grace Period. When this happens, the website and email for the domain name stops working. Of course, you can still renew your domain name and get it back.
If your registrar (eg: Network Solutions) has an agreement with a backordering company (eg: NameJet), then the backordering company is informed that your domain name has changed status. The backordering company may display the domain name on their website as being “available soon”. However, a user may decide to renew their domain name at this point and pay fee to get it back.
Dropped Domain
If the user does not renew their domain name, the domain state changes to Pending Delete. It stays in this state for approximately 5 days.
Once the Pending Delete period is finished, the domain name has expired. The domain is then released by the registrar (in theory) and becomes available to anyone to register. This process is called “the drop”. What happens in reality is that the registrars “hand over” their expired domains to the backordering companies, who then auction them off to the highest bidder. Domains that go through this process are also called dropped domains.
Expired Domains
Most domainers would agree that almost (if not) all expired domains are renewed and tasted. This is done to see if the domain can be monetized. If it can’t make money, then its left to expire. At this point each day, a large list of expired domains are available for anyone to register.
And that’s the circle of domaining life! Hakuna Matata.
Related Posts:
- The Reality Of Expired Domain Names
- Top 10 Tips To Keep Your Domains Safe From Thieves and Hijackers
- Auction Won: In Your Registrar Account = Not Your Domain?
- SnapNames Terminates The Names Registration
- My Easter Present = A Domain & Namecheap Coupons
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One of the confusing elements in all this is the Expiry date. As there’s actually two showing on the Whois record; 1 at the Registry and 1 at the Registrar level; and during redemption period quite often they have a one year gap between them. A lot of people I think are confused by this. Can you spell it out please?
[...] 1) Expired Domains Explained [...]
I actually want to see the answer to Gary’s question as well. Thanks.
[...] 1) Expired Domains Explained [...]