My domain expired: how to recover it and protect your site

When a domain expires, the website stops loading and email to that domain starts bouncing at the same time. It is stressful, but it is usually recoverable if you move quickly and in the right order.

What should I do in the first hour?

1. Confirm the status. Look up the domain through RDAP or your registrar. Statuses such as autoRenewPeriod, redemptionPeriod and pendingDelete tell you which stage it is in.
2. Find the registrar account. Log in at the registrar where the domain is registered. If you do not know it, the lookup shows the registrar's name.
3. Renew it now. In the grace period you pay the normal renewal price. In the redemption period there is an extra restoration fee.
4. Do not buy a replacement. Registering a similar name does not help a client who has printed the old one on every card and email.
5. Tell the client. A short message that you know, what stage it is in and when it will be back.

curl -sL https://rdap.org/domain/example.com | jq '.status, (.events[] | select(.eventAction=="expiration"))'

How do grace and redemption periods work?

The exact lengths depend on the registry and the registrar, but the stages are the same.

What if the domain was already released?

If you missed every stage, the domain may be registered again by someone else, or by a service that watches for expiring names. You can check whether it is available, make an offer to the new owner or set up a backorder, but you have no right to get it back. That is why the earlier stages are worth acting on immediately.

Why is the site still down after I renewed it?

Renewal restores the registration. It does not always restore everything that depended on it.

• DNS records. Check that the nameservers and the records for the site and email are present and correct.
• Caching. DNS changes take time to reach every network, and resolvers keep old answers until they expire. Some visitors will see the site before others.
• Email. Messages sent while the domain was down may have bounced. Ask people to resend anything important.
• Certificates. A site that uses HTTPS may also have a certificate close to its end date. See what to do when an SSL certificate expires.

How do I stop it happening again?

• Turn on auto-renew and check the payment method. An expired card is the most common reason an auto-renewed domain lapses.
• Use an account someone will always read. Renewal notices go to the account email. Use a monitored address, not a person who may leave.
• Know who owns the account. The client should be able to recover it, and so should you.
• Renew for several years where it makes sense. It removes the yearly deadline.
• Lock the domain and use two-factor authentication on the registrar account.
• Track the expiry date outside the registrar. A reminder you control still works when the registrar's emails do not arrive. Our guide on tracking domain and SSL expiry dates shows how.

Where Datumboard fits

Datumboard looks up the registry record for each domain behind your sites and shows the expiration date in one renewal calendar, next to your certificates, tokens and subscriptions. Some country domains do not publish an expiry date this way, and those read Not available so you can add the date by hand. It is in early access, and you can join the list below.