Ever wondered about the life cycle of a domain name? Every single day thousands of domains are registered while several expire. A domain that starts with Registration and ends with Deletion goes through 6 stages.
1. Check Availability and Domain Registration – The biggest issue before Registering a domain is Availability. The availability of good domain name, espcially for those who perfer a dot com, is a major concern. Forget single word, even names with two or three words are hard to find these days. Feel extremely lucky if you get the name you wish for.
Once the chosen Domain name is available, its registered with a Domain Registrar, for a minimum period of one year to a maximum of 10 years.
2. Active State – Post Registration, the domain will be active for the period its registered.
3. Expiry – All Domain services are ceased once it expires. This stage usually doesn’t occur unless the owner decides to let go of the domain or in rare cases forgets to renew it. The expiry period lasts for 40 days, during which the owner can renew it anytime.
4. Redemption – The domain enters into the redemption period after expiry. The owner can still renew it by paying 175$ as fine plus renewal charges.
5. Delete Pending – After the redemption period, the domain goes into the ‘Pending Delete’ stage, which last for 5 – 6 days.
6. Deleted and Now Available – The last stage of the domain cycle is deletion. Once the domain is deleted it will be available for purchase.
There you go, thats the Life Cycle of a Domain Name. Hope you enjoyed the article, drop in your feedback in the comments below
August 4th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Great article. While the above is the standard cycle of domain expiry, it’s important to note that not all of the domains will actually go through the redemption and pending delete cycles as described.
Many of the big registrars (enom, tucows, network solutions) will possibly
a) take some of the domain names over after they are expired and “park” them in order to make money of PPC advertising
b) in some cases they will even renew the domains and take ownership of the domain names in your stead
c) they may have an exclusive partnership with a company like SnapNames, NameJet or Afternic, which allows them to auction your domain name after expiry.
/FM
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Yay! Interesting.