My post ideas comes from issues that my web design clients encountered over the years and they needed help to resolve it.
Website domain name
You buy a domain name once, which you hopefully pay for an extended period of time, say 5 years. You have your website done, your business is growing, the website brings new clients every month and you’re really happy. Then suddenly one day the website is down, not just down but disappeared completely.
This could affect your business in a big way. Even one day of your website being down could mean hundreds of customers lost if you have an online store, or perhaps a handful of prospective clients lost if you are in a service business.
How to lose your domain name?
This is a true story, as my posts are always based off of, that happened not once, but a couple of time with different clients. Web design clients paid for the domain for 5 years, and when after 5 years the renewal email was sent from the hosting company, and it ended up in the spam folder, which not many of us check regularly.
The result was the loss of their precious domain name.
It is a shock.
It is really bad for any small business online marketing.
You built your business around this domain name, it is everywhere.
On the business card, brochure, on all the social media accounts, newsletters, online lead generation program depend on it. It is life-line for a business to reach new customers.
When you realize that your domain is not paid, what do you do?
If your domain name is expired, you should immaditaly contact the registrar that provided you domain for possible renewal options available to you.
Not remember where was the domain registered?
You may conduct a WHOIS search.
(Good to know that all the registrars have a couple of days grace period. In this period, the domain is reserved for you and you as the previous owner, can renew it up to 10 years.
After that most domain names have a redemption period. This period can last from two weeks to 30 days, and, during this time, the current registrant can renew the domain name by paying a redemption fee along with the domain name’s renewal fee.
If the redemption period is over, the domain is open for anybody to buy.)
Now, you head back to your domain registration company to renew it, then comes the shock.
Somebody already bought the domain you had for 5, 10 or even 15 years!
Somebody else now owns your domain!
Previously you paid around $15 a year for the domain, and now you could buy it back for $400 or $3000. What happened?
Recently some companies are jumping to buy used domain names that were not renewed, they just grab it and wait for companies to wake up and ask to buy it back their previous domain name.
But at what price?
Most of the times 10 or 20 times more than the original price was, or even higher depending on how the domain is ranked on Google. There were thousands of visitors per month on your site, then you will be desperate to buy it back for thousands of dollars.
This is what these companies want, don’t let it happen to you and your business.
What should you do so it won’t happen to you?
When you buy your domain name add your domain name renewal in your business calendar. Yes, plan ahead for 5 years, it’s really worth it!
In this case, you will be waiting for that renewal email, or just head to the registration website and renew it.
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