This article examines the lifecycle of a typical domain name, from registration to deletion. For simplicity, we will say that our domain name was registered on Jan 1, 2009.
| Date | Event | Status | ||
| 01/01/2009 | Domain registered | ACTIVE | ||
| 01/03/2009 | After 60 days, the domain can now be transferred to another registrar, if desired | ACTIVE | ||
| 01/12/2009 | most registrars start sending renewal notices around this time | ACTIVE | ||
| 01/01/2010 | the domain has expired; most registrars will HOLD the domain, which means your website and email will no longer work; you can still renew your domain name for the regular price; you can no longer transfer the domain unless you renew first | REGISTRAR-HOLD | ||
| 09/02/2010 | after 40 days, most registrars delete the domain; to get the domain back after this point you have to restore it which costs a lot | REDEMPTIONPERIOD | ||
| 11/03/2010 | after 30 days, the domain can no longer be restored; the only way to get the domain back is to wait until it is dropped from the registry; of course anyone else can also register the domain at that time | PENDINGDELETE | ||
| 16/03/2010 | after 5 days, the domain is dropped from the central registry and can now be registered by anyone, first come first serve; if the domain is valuable or has lots of traffic it will be snapped up seconds after it has dropped; Google “expiring domain names” for more information; to get a valuable domain back consider using a service like Snapnames.com. | none |
If you want to keep your domain name, the best policy is to renew early. You do not lose any time by renewing early. For example, if the domain expires on 1 Jan 2010, and you renew 1 month before that, the new expiration date is 1 Jan 2011.
The chart above applies to COM & NET domains. ORG, INFO, BIZ, US & CN domains have a similar lifecycle, but the status names may be different. WS domains do not have a REDEMPTIONPERIOD, and are dropped 25 days after expiration.
