Expired Domains Explained

I 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.

Network Solutions Backflip On Front Running

Network Solutions has tried the good old “Jedi Mind Trick” – and its FAILED big time.

These aren’t the domains your looking for…. move along… move along.

The company has issued a press release saying:

“Network Solutions has long called for a fee-based solution to eliminate the related abuses of domain name “tasting” and “front running.”

Umm… guys… just in case you DIDNT actually know…. YOU were the morons people who were sprung big time registering other peoples domain names without their knowledge engaging in this practice! Hello!!!!! Your magical jedi powers don’t extend to rewriting history. Now you write a press release saying that “these practices are abusive”.

What you guys need to do is, get a dictionary, now lookup the word hypocrisy [hip-ok-rass-ee]. Just in case you are too busy counting the great big piles of cash you are making from your monopoly (I’m sure you know the meaning of that word) – hypocrisy means “the practice of claiming to have standards or beliefs that are contrary to one’s real character or actual behaviour”.

Thanks to the guys at TechCrunch for bringing this to light. By the way Network Solutions, your so called “explanation” is not credible. Why do it in the first instance? What steps are you taking internally to ensure that you (as a company) don’t condone and/or engage in such unethical business practices in the future?