The Drop

What Is The Drop

"The Drop" (also known as drop cycle) is the process by which a domain name expires and is subsequently registered or backordered via a backordering company.

How Does It Work?

You can view a graphical representation of the Domain Name Life Cycle. To summarize, every domain name has an expiry date. You can check the expiry date by looking at the domain names whois record. When the domain name expires its status is changed by the registry. Each domain name has a status which changes over time:

• Status changes to "Registrar Hold" for up to 45 days
• Status changes to "Redemption Grace Period" for up to 30 days
• Status changes to "Pending Delete" for 5 days

After a name goes through Pending Delete its deleted and available to anyone to register. The milliseconds between "Pending Delete" and "Available" is what the backordering companies concentrate on.

More information can be found in the Domain Name Life Cycle.