Keeping Domains

[flamingphoenix]

I know domains are of course, by their very nature up for renewal at various points but aside from the provider emailing you saying x.whatever is about to expire is there anything else that would help t make sure I keep them in my good hands? I don't want to lose some of my names due to not checking various email accounts etc. Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[peacock]

Hello mate,

Who are your names with ?
Most registrars have the option to auto renew and some have this as the default.

I guess you could also use Google Calendar and set it up to email you reminders ? Or same thing with your phone calendar ?

 

[lufc]

As mentioned above either set them to auto renew, right the renewal date on a calendar, set a reminder on your phone, or just register the domains for 10 years

 

[HariSeldon]

is there anything else that would help t make sure I keep them in my good hands? I don't want to lose some of my names due to not checking various email accounts etc.

Assuming we are talking .uk, the single most important thing is to make sure the Whois details are up to date. Nominet will keep trying to contact you for 83 days even after the domain has expired but they're wasting their time if your contact details are out of date.

or just register the domains for 10 years

Maximum registration period is 2 years for .uk.

 

[grantw]

Download this for free, import your domains and scan the list every so often, it lists renewal dates, status etc etc:

Domain Name Analyzer, A Windows and Mac OS X software for finding, managing and maintaining domain names

Grant

 

[Nigel]

My wife has set up a nice renewal system. Very simple but works nicely.

We check through renewals before the auto renewal date (30 days prior for fasthosts, the day of renewal for heart) and turf out domains not earning on ppc or unlikely to attract a buyer in the future.

Then we tick them off as renewed. As long as you tick them off within a few weeks of the actual renewal date, you can't lose the domain if the registrar failed to renew, or there was some other error i.e. if you see an unticked domain on your renewal list you look into it to see why.

You can't simply rely on the registrar to renew. If they make an error you will find it very hard to get compensation.

 

[retired_member34]

Then we tick them off as renewed. As long as you tick them off within a few weeks of the actual renewal date, you can't lose the domain if the registrar failed to renew, or there was some other error i.e. if you see an unticked domain on your renewal list you look into it to see why.

Can you explain this further? Sounds good but I am missing something...what do you mean "tick them off as renewed"?

You can't simply rely on the registrar to renew. If they make an error you will find it very hard to get compensation.

Very true. Some years back my registrar did not renew my surname on a .com, even though they carried on charging for it. Current owner wants £3K for it.

 

[Nigel]

My wife built a domain database in microsoft excel. Very simple and I'm sure it's now a bit dated but works fine and gives peace of mind. Every month we print off a list of forthcoming renewals. As I said I cancel off some of them and they get deleted from the database. The others get ticked off as they are renewed and whois checked to ensure renewed. If we buy new domains they get added to the database (you can include other info in the database i.e. cost of domain, category i.e. finance, holiday etc). Our portfolio is quite large but not too large to handle all this and it doesn't take a lot of time to do.

 

[retired_member34]

Got it, thanks.