The most common way a website dies.
166 of the local business websites I opened returned nothing at all, and the usual reason is the dullest one imaginable. The domain expired. This page takes fifteen minutes and makes sure it is never you.
Why this is the failure that gets everyone
Every part of a website can be replaced except the address. Your hosting can move, your design can be rebuilt, your photographs can be retaken. The domain is the one thing that is printed on your van, your business cards, your Google listing, the sign on the door and every review anybody ever left. When it lapses, all of that points at nothing.
And it lapses silently. There is no bounced payment you notice, no letter. There is an email, sent to whatever address was typed in when the domain was first registered, which for a business more than five years old is frequently a personal account nobody opens, an employee who left, or the web designer who set it up.
Worse, the business is the last to know. You do not visit your own website. Your customers do, once, and then they go back to the search results and click a competitor.
Find out where you stand, right now
- Look up your own domain's public record. Every domain has one. Search for "whois" plus your domain name, or use ICANN Lookup, which is run by the body that oversees the whole system and does not try to sell you anything. Type in your address.
- Read three fields. The registrar is the company you actually pay. The expiry date is the deadline. The registrant is who owns it, which may not be you.
- Log in to that registrar. Not your web designer's dashboard, the registrar itself. If you cannot log in, that is the real problem and it is worth solving today while the domain still works, because it is far harder to prove you own something after it has expired.
- Turn on auto-renew, and check the card. Auto-renew on a card that expired in 2023 is not auto-renew.
- Put the date in your calendar anyway, two weeks before, as an all-day event that repeats every year. Belt and braces. The calendar does not depend on an email reaching an inbox you can still open.
While you are in there, check who the registrant is. If your domain is registered in a web designer's name or their company's name, you do not own your own address, and the day you fall out with them is the day you find out. This is fixable with a transfer while everyone is friendly. Ask now.
If it has already expired
Move today. The timeline is roughly the same at every registrar, though the exact days vary, so check yours rather than trusting these:
| Stage | Roughly | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Expired, grace period | 0 to 30 days | The site is down but you can usually renew at the ordinary price. Do it now. |
| Redemption period | 30 to 60 days | Still recoverable, but there is a restore fee, often $80 to $200 on top. |
| Pending delete | about 5 days | You cannot get it back. It is queued for release. |
| Released | after that | Anyone can register it. Expired domains with traffic get bought automatically within minutes. |
So the answer to "how long have I got" is: if it went down this month, probably fine. If it went down last year, someone else may own your name now, and the realistic options are buying it back at whatever they ask or choosing a new address and updating everything that points at the old one.
The two-minute version to do right now
- Type your own web address into your phone, on mobile data rather than the shop wifi, and see what happens.
- Look your domain up on ICANN Lookup and write the expiry date in your calendar.
- Confirm the registrant name is your business and not a person who no longer works with you.
If we ever work together, this stops being your problem. I record your renewal date and email you before it comes due, every year, for as long as I am doing this. Not only while you are a paying client. If we have worked together once you are on that list and you stay on it, even if I never hear from you again. That is written into the scope page rather than being a promise in a conversation nobody wrote down.
Want me to check yours?
Send me your web address and I will tell you the registrar, the expiry date and whether anything else about it is broken, whether or not you ever hire me. It takes me a minute and it is the single most useful minute I can spend on a stranger's business.