Don’t let your domain renewal notification go missing

At the start to every month, Andy and I send out our newsletter to clients. The newsletter includes website traffic statistics, some relevant keyword ranking information, a couple of paragraphs on a topical idea and a list of recent blog posts.

This month, the topical story was a true story about a client’s domain that expired on the first of the month. I think the topic is vitally important to every business, so I am posting the content of the newsletter here ……

Some of you manage your own domain registration. This usually means in the weeks prior to the expiry you receive one or more emails from the registrar asking you to renew.
We had a situation this week where we noticed one of our client domains went off the air. After a little checking it was obvious the domain had expired. As soon as a domain expires no one can access it.
The renewal emails had gone straight to the client’s junk folder and had not been noticed. Fortunately, the domain was expired only 24 or so hours and it was a simple matter to reactivate it. The down side was for a day no one could see the website and emails to the domain were bouncing back to the sender. To some it would have appeared as if this company had gone out of business.
A couple of issues to think about ..
Your domain name is an important asset for your business. It is a cornerstone of your ability to communicate with customers. It needs to be protected.
Do you know the email address associated with the domain? Is it one you use regularly? If you aren’t monitoring that address you could easily miss the notification.
Do know when it’s due to expire? Mark your diary with the expiry date and use an alert to get plenty of warning.
If you don’t know the email address we can look that up for you. But if you don’t know the expiry you will have to look through your old accounts or your emails from 2 years prior.

Three clients responded to the newsletter. It’s great to get feedback. Craig replied to say he had just renewed his domain. He’s safe for at least another 2 years. Angie replied to say she regularly checks the junk mail folder. Brett’s response was “I have been getting renewal notices and signed up to auto renew [mydomains].” This triggered a response. Here’s my reply to Brett.

Some registrars call automatically generating an invoice and sending it out as “auto renew”. If that’s the case you still need to keep an eye out for the email. Others hold your credit card details on file and charge it with the renewal fee at some point prior to expiry. Just watch that the credit card doesn’t expire between renewals.

Do you have your domain registration sorted?