April 29, 2006 - Renew and Protect your Domain Names
Imagine you logon to your website one day all you get is an error message. Or worse yet, the domain name now points to a site full of advertisements.

This happens every day because of a perfectly legitimate process known as "drop catching," where people quickly snag the domain names owners have let expire and try to resell them or use the links associated with the names, which could be extensive, to create Web sites loaded with advertisements. You can easily avoid becoming a victim of a drop catcher by better understanding how the domain registration system works to protect your domain name. In some cases where your domain name is a registered trademark you may be able to win a legal battle to get your domain back, but in most cases you are out of luck and the only way to get back your domain is to buy it at an outrageous price.

Ensure that your registrar has your current email address to notify you of upcoming renewals. If you have an auto-renew service make sure that they have your most up to date credit card numbers and expiry date. If you are receiving regular emails from your registrar, ensure that your spam filters are not blocking them or make a note somewhere when your domain expires. With prices for domains so cheap one method is to renew your domain for at least 5 - 10 years to avoid regular renewal.

Fortunately there is a short hold time on recently expired domains where the domain becomes "on hold" for about 30 days before being released to the general public. During this period your website will not work until you renew which can cause significant downtime for your website.

Many domain name registrars and new businesses are offering the ability to bid on auctions of recently expired or soon to expire domains. There are easy to find lists of recently expired domains that can be used to snap up domains right after they expire. There are hundreds of advertising companies that buy up expired domains along with any other domains that they feel may attract some amount of traffic only to place advertisements and other garbage to drive traffic to their customers web sites.

This has happened to a couple of TBayIT customers who have opted to manage their own domain and for whatever reason lapsed in renewing their domain name. Sure enough, their domain was bought up by other companies and they could not regain ownership of it.

Even in the situations where you are ceasing to use your domain and website, it may be a good idea to hold on to the domain. If the domain is still receiving traffic it may be worth something and is better owned by you than becoming a site full of advertisements.

Some services that allow you to buy and bid on expiring domains:
• SnapNames.com, Enom.com, Pool.com