Domain Names need to be renewed before they expire to avoid disruption to your company website or email.
Domain name renewal notices are sent by email and therefore it is very important to ensure that your email address and other contact details are kept up to date. Unless you transfer your domain to another domain name registrar, you will continue to pay your domain name renewal to the company where you bought your domain name from.
You should renew your domain name before the expiry date but domain names can be renewed for a period of 30 days after the domain has expired. Though the rules may vary for different domain name extensions and it is best to renew the domain, if you want to keep it, as soon as you get your renewal notice and avoid any disruption to your email or hosting or potentially losing the domain.
For global domain names, (which is administered by ICANN) if your domain is not renewed 30 days after it has expired, the domain name goes into redemption lock. You then have 30 days to renew your domain before your domain goes back to the public pool of available domain names. There is a fee associated with removing the domain from redemption lock. The fee is around US $200, so we strongly advise you to renew your domain before it goes into redemption lock to avoid this situation. If you do not want to pay the redemption fee, you can wait for the redemption period to expire, approximately 30-35 days and buy your domain back from the general pool BUT you may find that your domain is bought by somebody else before you are able to buy it back. Snatching expired domains is big business - so assume that if you don't renew your domain name, somebody else will.
Expired domains are published on lists that are available online. Therefore, when your domain name expires, other people will know about it and there are online services that notify people by email, when a particular domain is due to be dropped and available for renewal. The domain name drop, is the unpredicable three hour period of time, where an expired domain is released from the central database and available for registration. There are various domain name snatching businesses that specialize in registering expired domains.
All expiring Australian domain names are published on the auDA's website and are also distributed on various email lists by the respective registrars. Australian domains can now be bought and sold, provided the registrant is eligible to hold the domain name license and provided the domain has been registered for more than 6 months. As a consequence of domain name trading, Australian domains are increasingly monetized by domainers.
You can still renew an Australian domain up to 30 days after the domain name expires but you should renew your domain prior to it expiring if you have a website or email attached to your domain name because on the expiry date of your domain, your website and email will stop working.
Many people are unaware of the practice of monetizing domain names and although they may feel that they have no need for their domain name, the domain name itself may be valuable. Most registrars now offer some kind of premium domain name selling and the fact is, that many would not be concerned if you let your domain name lapse because they would make a truckload more money if you let your domain registration expire and they picked up and resold your domain name than if you renewed your domain name.
If you you have a good marketable domain name, inbound links to your site, good keywords in the domain or a high page rank, you may find that your domain has just become a prize catch for someone else. There are registrars who do not care that a customer's domain expires, because they know they can register that domain before it goes into the general pool and sell it for thousands, tens of thousands or more. We do not agree with such practices.
The first domain name renewal notice is sent 60 days before your domain name is set to expire and we strongly recommend that you renew your domain name as soon as you receive your first notice. You will also get additional notices, if you do not renew your domain name.
You will need to login and check when your domain name is due to expire. If you bought your domain or transferred your domain to Passion Computing, please login here. and it will show you a list of your domains and their expiry dates.
To renew your domain, simply login and click on the 'renew' link and enter your payment details. If you have forgotten your username and password, simply click the forgotten password link and enter your domain name and your username will be displayed and your password sent to your contact email address.