Why you need to keep track of your Domain Name Registrations…
For most companies, big or small, their website is the first port of call for many customers. It’s key to their branding and their services. The domain name is critical to how customers interact with the company, either via the website or email.
What are Domain Names?
Domain names are the internet placeholder for companies, brands, products or services. Depending on the company’s market or reach they may have multiple domain names across many of the Top Level Domains (TLD) (.com, .org, .net, etc. and the many country specific TLDs). Each one would represent the brand’s point of contact for that region, product or service. Domain names are typically registered by the company for a period of years, anything from 1 year to 15 years. The longer the period, the cheaper the cost per year. The domain names are added to the TLDs by the Registrar, the organisation that the company has chosen to register or purchase their domain name with.
Do registrations expire? Yes!
Domain name registrations do indeed expire and when they expire, the domain name is available on the open market and it doesn’t matter what the domain name is or how big the company who registered it is! Some registrants offer limited protection from expiry by way of an additional year to get your domain name renewed. Most also offer auto-renew facilities, but this is not without it’s issues as some registrations can be for multiple years, up to 15 years. However, the problem here is that the registrations are tied to a credit card which will only have a certain lifespan and potentially less than that of the registration. So, if the credit card has expired, the auto-renew will not be processed and the domain name could be made available on the open market.
But, does that ever happen? Ask Google!
And by “Ask Google” we don’t mean search Google to see if known domain names are ever sold on the open market, which they are. But in fact, Google found themselves in the tricky situation in September 2015 when their primary domain’s (Google.com) registration expired and was then made available on the open market! Only for the keen eye of decent ex-googler, who noticed the availability and snapped up the domain for 12 dollars before anyone else. Who was the registrant or the company offering the Google.com for sale? None other than Google’s very own Google Domain service! You can read the full story in Sanmay’s Linkedin Post here. Google ended up cancelling the order, but Sanmay did own Google.com for a short while. He was given a reward from Google for finding the issue, which he donated to charity and then Google doubled it.
While this was a happy ending for Google, it can so easily happen for any domain out there and the outcome may not be as positive. Auto-renew not available or enabled, old credit cards expiring, expiry notification emails going to old inactive addresses, etc. If it does happen and you lose your domain name, your customers will lose access to your website and email. Or worse still, you site could be hijacked! All leading to damaging your brand and customer confidence.
So, this is why you need to keep track of all your domain name registrations!
About Support Renewals (hello@supportrenewals.com)
Our web platform is the best place for you to keep track of all your Domain Name Registrations, IT renewals, hardware and software support renewals, IT contracts, licenses, SSL cert expiry and all other renewals. We are vendor agnostic, so you can use our platform to keep track of renewals from any vendor, new or old! Our dashboard gives you an overview of your renewals due throughout the year, giving you better forecasting and budgeting, always knowing what renewals are coming up and how much they previously cost you through our fully searchable tables and easy to use interface.
Our new Domain Name feature allows you to quickly add your domain name(s) and pre-populate our Add Renewal Form with the Domain Name expiration date, the Registrar and Registrant details. Once added, we’ll notify you and your team when you Domain Name expiry is approaching, regardless of whomever originally registered the Domain Name.
Sign up today for your free account and get on top of your renewals once and for all! It only takes a few minutes to get started… https://www.supportrenewals.com
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-purchased-domain-googlecom-via-google-domains-sanmay-ved/
