A domain name is easy to forget because it works quietly in the background. Your website loads, your email arrives and customers find you by typing it in. Then one day the renewal notice goes to an inbox nobody reads, and the business is one missed payment away from losing both its website and its email. This is the check I run when a domain is close to expiring. It takes less than an hour.
Find out who owns the registration
Log in to the registrar where the domain was bought and confirm which account holds it. The registration should be in the business’s name and under a login the business controls, not under a former employee’s personal account or a web designer’s login. If you cannot find the account, that is the first problem to solve, and the registrar’s account recovery process is the place to start.
Check the renewal contact email
Registrars send renewal notices to the contact email on file, and that address is often out of date. Look at the registrant, administrative and technical contacts and make sure at least one is a mailbox the owner reads every day. A shared mailbox that several trusted people can see is often safer than a personal address that only one person checks.
Look at auto-renew and the payment method
Turn on auto-renewal if the registrar offers it, and confirm the card on file is current. Expired cards are a common reason a renewal fails, and a failed renewal can go unnoticed for weeks. Check the card’s expiration date as well as the domain’s. Set a calendar reminder a few weeks before the renewal date so you have time to fix a problem instead of scrambling at the last minute.
Keep the transfer lock and privacy setting on
Many registrars offer a transfer lock that stops the domain from being moved to another company without extra confirmation. Keep it on. Privacy protection hides your personal contact details from public lookups. Both settings are simple to check, and both make it harder for someone else to take control of the name.
Know what happens if it lapses
When a domain expires, it does not disappear that day. Many registrations go through a grace period where the owner can still renew at the normal price. After that comes a redemption period, when recovery is still possible but costs more and takes longer. Eventually the name can be released, and anyone can register it. The exact timing depends on the registry and the registrar, so read your registrar’s policy rather than trusting a number from a forum post. The safe plan is to renew early.
Copy the DNS and email records before you touch anything
If you change the domain’s nameservers or move it to a new host during a renewal, your website and email can stop working. Before any change, copy the current DNS records into a document. That includes the records that route email, such as MX records, and any verification entries for tools you use. Store the copy with your business records so the next person can restore the setup without guessing.
Write the renewal into your records
Domains belong on the list of renewals every business tracks, with the owner, the registrar and the date. The same list should include certificates, software subscriptions and hosting. When the list is written down, a renewal stops being a surprise. If nobody currently takes care of the website, the questions in how many pages a small business website needs are a good place to start, but the bigger gap is ownership. A domain nobody is responsible for is a risk no matter how well the website is built.
Ask whether someone is responsible for it
A maintenance agreement should say who renews the domain, who holds the login and who gets the notices. If your website is maintained by someone outside the business, ask them to show you the registrar account and confirm the contact email. A managed provider can take this on, but the business should still know where the registration lives. The managed IT services guide explains what to ask before signing with any provider.
If you find a problem, act that day
If the domain has already expired, contact the registrar right away and ask what recovery options exist. Do not wait for a weekend. Find out whether the website and email depend on that domain in a way that could break further, and tell the people who need to know. A lapsed domain is usually easier to recover when the owner moves quickly.
Danielle Lemons is Vice President of Operations at DirecTech Connect, a Nashville provider of business phone systems, managed IT services, websites and digital marketing. More about Danielle.
Read more of Danielle’s writing, or see her profile at DirecTech Connect.
