(the 5-minute task that could save your website)

Today I have a short, but important, cautionary website tale. The silver lining is: you only need about 5 minutes to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.

My client, Mike (name changed for obvious reasons) got in touch to say he had just checked his website, and instead of seeing his usual Home page, a notice had appeared saying that the domain name was for sale. What had happened? And could I help?

I took a look, and sure enough, not only was Mike’s website down, but his precious business domain name was indeed for sale. However, the price attached to it was not the typical $10 - $20 you’d normally pay for a website name.

It was a whopping $650.

How you can lose your website domain name

Although I can’t be sure, here is my best guess for what happened to Mike’s website domain:

It had been several years since he had originally purchased his domain name
The credit card that he had on file with the domain name registration company had expired
Crucially: the email address on file with the domain name registration company was old, too (Mike was no longer checking it)
Shortly after his domain registration expired, an opportunist investor purchased it, taking a gamble that Mike would feel compelled to buy it back.

I'm not a fan of the practice of buying expired domains as a “flipping” opportunity, but I can understand why people do it. Sadly, there are dozens of articles online about how to make money from unfortunate and disorganized small business owners.

When your domain expires, you (the original owner) generally have 30 to 60 days to renew it by paying a fee. If your domain isn’t renewed by the end of the grace period, the registering authority takes back full rights and access.

If you’re not keeping an eye on domain renewal dates, and if your domain registrar can’t contact you to let you know, this can happen pretty easily.

And at that point, an unfortunate process kicks off, allowing someone else to buy it. Here are more details of what happens, for example, at GoDaddy.

The cost of losing your website domain name

This administrative oversight cost Mike $650, plus more for my time in advising him, and his own time and stress in getting his website back up again.

Depending on your domain name, and how widely appealing it is, the price tag for buying back your domain name could be considerably more. In Mike’s case, the name was very specific to him and his business (example: MikeLastnameAuthor.com) If your domain name is more generally attractive, (example: MysteryNovels.com), I would expect the price to be even higher.

The 5 minute task I recommend to protect your website domain name

The heart-breaking thing about this story is, it would have been easy to avoid. Just a few minutes of your time can safeguard your domain name:

Log in to the company where you registered your domain name. This may or may not be the same place where you manage your actual website.
Check that the email address in your account is one that you are checking regularly.
Recommended: check that the credit card on file is still current, and that you have enabled auto-renew for any domains that are critically important for your business.
Recommended: while you’re here, set up 2-factor authentication for logging into this domain account. It’s not worth running the risk of getting it hacked.

That’s it. That’s all it needs to protect your domain name.

So, should your website designer own and manage your domain name for you?

You might think, as a web designer, I would recommend allowing me to take care of your domain name for you, so that I can look after administrative details like this on your behalf.

Absolutely not. I always expect my clients to own their own domain names, because, in my view, your domain name is one of your biggest business assets, and you should be in full control of it.

If something happens to me, I don’t want you to have to struggle to regain control of your name.
If you decide to work with someone else for your future website needs, I want you to be independent and able to do so easily and without awkwardness.
Frankly, I prefer to work with clients who understand the exceptionally high business value of your website, and the domain name where you work so hard to send traffic.

If this happens to you, should you buy back your expired domain name?

First of all, the chances are, your actual underlying website is safe. Sure, it no longer has an address where it can be found, but unless your website subscription (for a service like Squarespace) or hosting (for WordPress) has also expired, your web pages remain and you’ll simply (!) need to connect either your new domain name, or the domain name you buy back.

So, your decision becomes, should you pay the hefty fee to get back your expired domain?

Reasons why you should consider paying up

You've been using an email address associated with your domain, for example mike@mikelastnameauthor.com, and so you've lost access to those messages too.
You’ve listed your website name in the back of all of your books (both paperbacks, which you can’t change, and ebooks, which will be tedious to update).
You've got a large / wide amount of bookmarks, advertising, business cards, guest articles, or other information in circulation, that includes your domain name.
If you sell services, you've been getting lots of clients who found you directly through your website, especially SEO, and who would not have known any other way to get in touch.

Reasons not to pay to get your expired domain back

Clients are finding out about you through referrals, a phone number, email address, or (as far as you can tell) are using your website to "check you out" after hearing about you, not as their primary discovery method.
If you’re an author, your books are showing up well in Amazon searches, and at other online bookstores, and sales are healthy.
You have a sizable and healthy email list, and you get a good response when you send out your newsletter. In other words, you can email your fans directly and tell them about your website woes, and remind them how to buy your books and/or work with you.
You have enough clients lined up for the time being, so you can pause and think about it.
You are reasonably confident that nobody else will be in a rush to buy your domain name, because it’s highly specific to you.

If you don't pay to get your expired domain back, I suggest:

Buy a different domain name.
Go into your DNS settings and (using the help information from your website platform), create the necessary DNS records so that your website now shows up for the new name.
Email your list and also tell everyone you can think of that this hiccup has occurred, and that you have a new website address. The silver lining is, this is a great excuse to get in touch with contacts, and people who've inquired but not booked to work with you.
Make a note to check on your expired domain every few weeks, and especially around the 1-year anniversary when you think the registration expired. Hopefully, the opportunist investor bought it for a year, and then will let it go. At that point, obviously buy it back, and get it back in play.

Conclusion

If you went on vacation for a while, left your front door unlocked, and came back to find someone had moved into your home, you’d experience not only financial loss to get them out, but plenty of emotional distress, too. My feeling is, your online home is similar. This sad tale left a nasty taste in my mouth, on behalf of my client, and I’m sharing it in the hope I can help you avert a similar situation.

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