Netfirms: Renewing your domain name after it expires

Posted by Felix Okoli on Tuesday August 26, 2014 at 8:44:38:

I have several domain names and websites which I registered with Netfirms but I don't visit them all the time. However, on one particular day when I tried checking one of them out, I noticed that it had expired as the website was no longer active and there was a notice saying that the domain name has expired

Domain names normally expire on a yearly basis but one can renew them in advance such as 2, 5 or even 10 years forward and one can also decide to allow your domain registrar renew it for you by choosing an automatic renewal process. With Netfirms, you can pay for domain names and renew them using a Visa/Mastercard or Paypal. So, I decided to log into my Netfirms account just to see the status of the website.

On logging in and checking the website, I noticed that the domain name had indeed expired and I had only set it up to be manually renewed. Since it was not on automatic renewal and the registration period only covered 1 year, it expired even without me knowing although I think they initially sent me an email. I guess that it's not advisable to register a domain name without including the auto-renewal option unless you don't plan to keep the domain name for more than a year.

Domain names can be grabbed and this means it can be taken by your competitor after it has expired and you didn't renew it. You may end up paying more to retrieve it back. It's not good to lose a domain name you've owned for years and have built content around it. However, it can only be grabbed if one didn't renew it after days.

What normally happens to your domain name after it expired and unrenewed is that first your domain registrar will hold it for at least 30 days and during that period, your website will be offline. With Netfirms, after 30 days, the expired domain name will then be available to other people to purchase it and during that period, it would be hard for you to retrieve it and may have to buy it back at a higher price assuming the third party decides to sell it back to you.

Anyway, after checking to see the status of my expired domain name and noticed that it has expired about 8 days ago, I was glad I could still renew it since it's not yet up to 30 days.

If the domain name has expired and remains unrenewed or unpurchased by a third party for up to 45 days, it will then be placed in redemption period and Netfirms will be able to give it back to you but at a fee of about $160 which excludes the renewal fee. Anyway, since this was basically a new website, I just wanted to avoid having to pay a huge fee on it and rather renew it before the 30 days has expired.

Under Domain Central, I selected the domain and clicked on the Renew button and my bill was $12.49. I click on the Paypal button in order to use Paypal as my payment option. Since Paypal now works in Nigeria, I logged into my Paypal Nigeria account and chose to pay using the platform and the renewal was successful.