So I found a domain name for my new project. It’s a good name, and better yet the name was expiring soon / has expired. Or so I thought…
Record expires on 07-24-2003
Record created on 07-24-2002
According to the whois the domain expired on the 24th. I purchased the domain backorder service offered by godaddy so that as soon as it expired I could snatch it up. Except today on the 25th I noticed that I did not receive the domain registration. So I called tech support and you know what they told me???
Domain registrations don’t expire for almost 45 days after the date listed!
Yep, it turns out that after your domain expires you have a 30 day grace period to purchase the name, then after that you have another 15-30 days when the name goes into redemption by that registar, then the domain is available to the public. Crazy huh?
The moral of the story is not to bother renewing your domain names on time. Why not get 13 months of registration for the price of 12?