An Ugly Surprise From Powerpipe.com

[cameron]

One of my domains expired yesterday. No big deal I thought. I would get around to renewing it in a few days. I'd done it before with no problems. Just now, however, I logged in, chose to renew the domain, and there is a $25 surcharge to re-instate an expired domain. $7.99 quickly jumped to $32.99. A lesson learned for sure.

[r2d2]

Cant you just register it with someone else?

Maybe I misunderstand, but couldnt you just register it with someone like GoDaddy for $7 or so? Not too sure how the expiring works, as havent been in the business long enough!

[cameron]

Good question. Maybe someone else here knows. I think I would need to transfer it, and I'm probably not allowed unless I pay those fees.

[Chris]

Once it is expired you cannot transfer it. You'll need to bite the bullet.

[r2d2]

If its expired though, surely its free for anyone to register?

This is why there is a huge trade in epired domains right?

[cameron]

It's expired in a sense, but it's not free for the public to register yet. There is some sort of wainting period. Otherwise someone could just snatch it up right now.

[r2d2]

Ah thats it then - I was quite sure exactly what 'expired' actually meant. Sounds like you will need to make the payment then :(

[Mike]

Is it an important domain though? Can you risk waiting until it's available to the public?

[paul]

I have my domians at enom.com. When they expire they go into an expired list and I have about 30 days to re-activate (for the usual fee). I say about, because at some point (30 days? they still show on the enom list, but I can no longer re-activate.

deleteddomains.com is a good place to watch this process. They track all the deleted domains and have a really nice search tool that lets you troll for ideas, find good names, etc.

Expiring names first show up there in the "Pending" category. They stay in pending for some length of time I have not been able to quantify. Sometimes its weeks, sometimes months. At some point the name converts to "Deleted" and at that point it is available for re-registration. I have been able to retrieve a couple of names by checking their list every morning and grabing the name when it went to the deleted category. I think the list you see at deleted domains runs about 24 hours behind the actual drops so it isn't a way to get your hands on a really hot name.

Just for fun I did a search at deleteddomains asking for all .com's starting with the string "sublime" that had ever expired. Got over a hundred :)

By the way, they also removed names that are re-registered from their expired list but that process also runs about 24 hours behind.

Happy hunting.

Paul

[thebillionaire]

you can just get a domain a names4ever.com and put the domain to auto-renew every year. Much Easier.

[paul]

Unless of course you are managing 300-400 domains for 10-15 different people/organizations. Then you want to be sure you get notified of impending expirations, but you don't want them to actually renew until you have the customers check in your hand :)

[thebillionaire]

I dont think anyone has 300-400 domains here.

[chromate]

I had my chrosys.com domain with register.com and when it expired it was like they automatically registered the domain for another 2 years. I then had to buy it back off them for an inflated price in order to keep it.

[Chris]

I don't let mine expire. I get email warnings when they're close and I renew them.

[thebillionaire]

Where do you buy your domains from?

[mobilebadboy]

Mine are all just set to auto-renew. Unfortunately Dotster still sends me constant reminders when they're close to expiration. They should alter their system a bit to recognize domains set to auto-renew. The whole reason I set them that way is so I don't have to worry about them, but I guess they want me too, heh.

Although I've never looked that hard, I've yet to find anyway to opt out of those notifications. I have found the way to opt out of domain transfer notifications, but not auto-renew.

[chromate]

I don't normally let mine expire either. Because I wanted to get the domain away from register.com and their extortionate charges, I was hoping to let chrosys.com expire and then re-register it with a different registrar, thereby avoiding transfer costs. I thought that would be safe because there is no demand for that domain name. I didn't bank on my own registrar re-registering the domain so I'd have to buy it back off them! lol

[cameron]

Is it an important domain though? Can you risk waiting until it's available to the public?

I would say it was my most important domain, http://www.hdskate.com.
I ended up renewing with them and paying for my laziness. That charge was a new thing though. Now I know not to let them expire anymore.

[paul]

You will also be transferring the names to a new registrar?

[cameron]

No. I still like powerpipe. I was just surprised by the new fee, but as long as I don't let anything expire anymore I don't have to worry about it.