Domain name renewal is the process of purchasing additional time to an existing
domain name registration. Domain names can have a maximum of ten years of
registration term attached to them at any given time. You can keep a domain name
indefinitely by renewing the domain name prior to expiration time and time
again.
Note: Any company offering one hundred year registrations is either a scam or a
company that will take your money now and renew your domain name for you every
ten years until one hundred years is up.
When you renew your domain name you add whatever amount of time you choose the
remaining time on your registration. For example if you have eleven months
remaining on your domain name registration and you decide that you are going to
keep your domain name for a very long time you can conduct a domain renewal for
nine years (remember the 10 year max) . The additional nine years now brings the
date that your domain name expires to nine years and eleven months into the
future.
For any domain names that you plan on keeping it is prudent to register your
domain name for several years at a time. The longer your term of registration
the lower the price per year costs.
Should you forget to renew your domain name it then holds an Expired status
which can last anywhere from 0 to 45 days (at the Registrars discretion). You
can typically still conduct a domain renewal during this period.
After Expiration comes the Redemption Grace Period which lasts 30 days. You can
typically still conduct a domain renewal during this period but there will be
some additional fees attached.
After the Redemption Grace Period comes the Pending Deletion period which lasts
for 5 days. After this period the domain name is released to the public and is
available for anyone to register.
Note: There are companies of questionable ethics which will register domain
names they hold to be active web sites immediately as that domain name becomes
available. They then offer to sell the domain name back to the previous owner
who may have forgotten to conduct a domain renewal for many times what a domain
registration costs. For example xyz.com is an active domain name and web site
but company “xyz” forgets to renew their domain name. Unethical company “A”
registers the domain name because they know that xyz.com is an active company
which uses their domain name. Of course “xzy” company realizes something is
wrong very quickly because all of the sudden their web site is gone and they are
not doing any online business. Company “A” may put up a one page web site saying
the domain name is for sale for usually several hundred to several thousand
dollars. If company xyz wants their domain name back they can either file for
legal action or pay what company “A” is asking.
