What happens when a domain expires

The timeline for a .com or other generic extension

Day 0: expiry. The registration term ends. Many registrars renew automatically if a card is on file. If not, the domain stops working, or is pointed at a parking page, within days.

Days 0 to about 45: auto-renew grace period. The owner can renew at the normal price. The length is set by the registrar and can be anything from zero to 45 days. During this window the name is still registered. DNS may already be dead, which is why DNS-based checkers start calling it “available” right here. It isn’t.

Registrar auction, often but not always. Before letting a name go, many registrars list it on their expired-domain auction. If someone bids, the name transfers to the winner and never drops. This is how most valuable expired names change hands.

About 30 days: redemption grace period. The name is deleted from the registrar’s active list but the registry holds it. The original owner can still restore it, for a fee that is usually far above a renewal. Status in the RDAP record: redemptionPeriod.

Five days: pending delete. No one can restore it. Status: pendingDelete. The registry will purge it at the end of the window.

The drop. The name is released and can be registered by anyone. Drop-catching services fire registration requests at the exact moment. For a name with any value, an individual typing it into a registrar has almost no chance.

Why does an expired domain look available when it isn’t?

Because its website is down. Tools that test whether a name resolves see nothing and report “free”. The registry, meanwhile, still lists it as registered with an expiry status. This is one of the most common reasons a name appears available and can’t be bought.

How do I get an expired domain I want?

1. Look up the RDAP record. Check the expiry date and status codes.
2. If the status is normal and the expiry has passed, the owner may still renew. Wait, or contact them.
3. If the registrar runs auctions, find the listing and bid.
4. If it’s in redemption or pending delete, place a backorder with a drop-catcher. If several services are targeting it, the winner usually re-auctions it among their bidders.
5. If it drops with nobody watching, register it normally. This happens for names with little market value, which is most of them.

How do I stop my own domain expiring?

Auto-renew on, a card that doesn’t expire before the domain does, and a second contact email that isn’t at the domain itself. If your renewal reminders go to you@yourdomain.com and the domain lapses, you won’t get them.

Everything a lapse costs you — the redemption fee, the auction, the risk of a catcher taking it — is more expensive than the renewal you missed. The renewal-price trap covers the other half of this: knowing what the renewal will actually be.

Plainly

An expired domain passes through grace, possible auction, redemption and pending delete before it is released. That takes up to about 80 days, and for most of it the name is dark but not free.

What Webault does about this

Webault reads the registry’s answer, not the DNS. A domain in its expiry window comes back as registered and is struck through, or as unverified if the registry’s answer is unclear. It is never shown as free.

Questions

Related reading

• Why did a domain show as available, but I couldn’t buy it? — the eight reasons, and how to spot each one.
• The renewal-price trap in cheap domains — why the $2 domain renews at $30, and how to check before you buy.
• Is domain front-running real? — what happened in 2008, and why a searched name usually vanishes for duller reasons.