A domain doesn’t vanish the day it expires, but the timeline afterwards gets worse fast, and at some point it’s gone for good — sometimes to someone else entirely.
The rough timeline
- Expiry day: your site and email typically go down, or start showing a registrar parking page instead
- A short grace period: you can usually still renew at the normal price, but this window is short and varies by registrar and TLD
- Redemption period: the domain can often still be recovered, but usually only at a steep redemption fee, sometimes hundreds of pounds
- Released: after that, it’s back on the open market — anyone can register it, including someone who wants your traffic or your brand name
Why this catches people out
Renewal reminders go to whatever email address was on file when the domain was registered — often years ago, sometimes an employee who’s since left, sometimes a spam folder. Nobody notices until the site is already down.
What we do
Renewal at the same price as signup, and we don’t bury the renewal notice. If you’re not sure when your domain expires, ask us — it takes one lookup.