Each domain name is registered for a set amount of time, normally on a yearly basis with .au domains registered for a minimum 2 years, and it’s up to the person who registered it to renew it to keep the website and associated e-mail accounts live. If that doesn’t happen, it’s possible that someone else can register the domain and you’ll lose all you files and e-mails, not to mention all your business cards will be out of date. Domain protection can prevent this.

Common reasons for non-renewal

There are a number of very common reasons why individuals and companies forget to renew their domain, although often it’s simply carelessness. Something as simple as setting up an automatic renewal on a credit card that has now expired, the person in charge of the website being on holiday at the wrong time or having left the company completely, or something as small as a change in e-mail address can mean a domain doesn’t get renewed and no one is notified.

Worst case scenario

If you’ve had your website for a long time, all your staff members have e-mails connected to it and all your stationery has the website printed on it – or even bigger things like a delivery van – then you might be in for some problems. Once your site registration has run out, other people or companies are allowed to buy the domain, meaning your old URL will now point to someone else’s site, possibly a competitor’s, and none of your e-mail addresses will work.

How to prevent this happening

Being vigilant with your site details – knowing who’s in charge of renewing it and keeping admin details up to date – can stop this problem ever occurring.

Another option, a safety net, is to buy protected registration for your domain. Without costing much money, you can reserve your domain for up to a year after it’s expired, meaning that if you forget to renew your registration then no one can nip in and steal your domain within 12 months. All your e-mails and uploaded files will be safe during that period and you can re-register at any time to get things up and running again.

Netregistry offers automatic renewal for all domain names registered with us. If you currently have a domain name with Netregistry and would like to set this up, read this support article on how to setup the auto-renewal of domains in your account.

If you would like to speak to one of our consultants about the above or any of our other services, please contact us on (02) 9934 0501 or email [email protected].