Usually before a domain meets its expiry date, an email reminder will be automatically generated from the web host to the domain owner. I usually get 3 notices from my web host when domains get near expiry date but I’d always renew as soon as I got the first notice. To understand how bad this will affect Advertlets, I had a chat with Melvin over IM to understand more about this domain expiry matters.

When your domain expires…

Say you’ve forgotten to renew and your domain expired, where does it goes to and what happens next?

An expired domain will undergo the Renewal Hold for 3 months. During these 3 months, the owner can renew the domain directly from its registrar. If the owner fail to renew within these 3 months, the domain will then go into the Redemption Period, it’ll cost the owner an extra fees of RM600 (excluding the renewal fee) to get the domain back.

If the owner did not reclaim the domain after Redemption Period (which last about 1 week to 6 months) , the domain will be publically opened, however getting the domain back isn’t easy. If the domain has a high rank or popular, chances are bots are waiting to purchase them. These bots are scripts that constantly checks for domain that are near expiry, and when the domain is dropped these bots will register it. Bots can be owned by anyone and usually when bots registered a domain, it’ll hold them for 10 years (maximum years a .com can be hold) or sell them away at a luxury price. Sometimes the registrar will take over the these domains themselves, and sell at a higher price.

So if you missed the expiry date and your domain went public bidding, it’s probably a goner. As for Advertlets, there’s still plenty of time to save the domain and get things back on track.