source: https://www.wapmastazone.com/domain-expiration/

domain expiration – What happens when a domain expires? This article will explain the domain expiration process and what you must do in order to keep your domain or take advantage of a soon-to-expire domain.

“They say the arms race ended with the close of the Cold War 15 years ago, but someone apparently forget to tell combatants in the domain business to lay down their weapons! The fight for dropping domains in this industry has turned into an epic struggle that has left a lot of virtual dead and wounded along the way. In this battle zone, there’s no need to worry about surface to air missiles, it’s software programs that strike the deadly blows. This was the word of Mike Davidson written in his article How to Snatch an Expiring Domain in 2005.

Apparently, nothing has changed, the domain industry has become a gold mine and the hunt for new and expired domains has not stopped.


So, What Happens When a Domain Expires?
Contrary to popular belief, domains do not expire when they say they do. Before a domain finally expires and becomes available for new registration. It first becomes inactive, then enters a grace period.

It was on Aug the 31st, 2013, when ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) adopted the Expired Registration Recovery Policy which requires registrars to notify registrants of important information regarding their domain expiration, renewal, and procedures. This is passed to you by your domain registrar.


Domain Renewal Alert
Your registrar will send multiple emails to notify you of expiration within the 30 days prior and 30 days after the expiration date of your domains.

If you get these notifications and you then decide not to renew the domain, the domain then enters expiration time before it is finally available for purchase again.

Domain Expiration timeline
Using Godaddy as a case study, Below is what GoDaddy does from day 1 until the 72 days of expiration time.

+1 day - Godaddy will try to auto-renew it, or you can manually renew for the standard renewal price.

+5 days - Godaddy will try to auto-renew again – but if that doesn’t work, your domain gets parked: your site and email stop working. But you can still manually renew for the standard renewal price.

+12 days - Godaddy try to auto-renew your domain one more time. You can still manually renew for the standard renewal price.

+19 days - The Domain goes on hold: it’s still in your account but inactive. Manually renew with applicable redemption fee.

+26 days - By 26th day, the domain goes to auction. If there are no active bids on the domain, you can still manually renew for the standard price plus the applicable redemption fee.

+30 days - If no active bids in the auction, the domain stays in your account but now it’s expired. You can manually renew for the standard price plus the applicable redemption fee. If there’s an active bid at auction, the domain can’t be renewed.

+36 days - Domain goes to a final closeout auction. Until there’s an active bid, you can still manually renew for the standard price plus the applicable redemption fee. Once there’s a bid, you can’t renew the domain, but you can place your own bid.

+41 days - Final closeout auction ends. You can still manually renew for the standard price plus the applicable redemption fee.

+72 days - Domain is removed from your account and you can’t renew it anymore. You may be able to register the domain after the registry has released it, but GoDaddy can’t advise when the registry will release a domain for registration.


If the owner of a domain does not renew by the expiration date of the domain, the domain goes into “expired” status. For 72 days, the domain is in a grace period where all services are shut down and the domain owner may still renew the domain for a standard renewal fee.

However, If a domain enters the 72days period, it may indicate the following;

the owner doesn’t have access to renew the domain
the domain owner doesn’t want the domain anymore
the owner is facing technical issues, doesn’t even know, or procrastinating.

Domain Redemption:
After 41 days, the domain’s status changes to “redemption period” and all WhoIs information begins disappearing, and more importantly, it now costs the owner an additional fee to re-activate and re-register the domain. The fee is around $100 but varies depending on your registrar. When a domain enters its redemption period, there is a chance that it could become yours as the owner might not renew it. You can dig up domain information by using a domain expiration checker.


Domain Pending Deletion:
Finally, after the redemption period, the domain’s status will change to “locked” as it enters the deletion phase which is 5 days long. On the final day, the name will officially drop from the ICANN database and will be available for anyone to register.

How to Buy an Expired Domain – The Drop Period
By 75 days after expiration, the domain becomes available to the public and could be registered again by anyone.

However, you probably won’t know that the domain is available unless you are following up. At this period, any other person can also snatch it before you do, and this is where the backdoor comes in.

If the domain name is very valuable to you and yo

source: https://www.wapmastazone.com/domain-expiration/