Nov 10 2008
Domain Name Redemption “Grace” Period
Recently I helped a customer redeem back their domain name. The domain name was registered for the end user by a reseller under the reseller’s name one year ago. Later, the reseller no longer carried on her web design business and passed on the domain name to another company, who in turned passed it to yet another designer.
Thirty days before the domain name expiry date, my system sent out reminders by email and SMS to the reseller as usual, who I believed passed the reminders to the person in charge. But somehow the domain was not renewed until it fell into the “redemption grace period” 40 days after expiry.
In this period, the end user customer could no longer renew the domain at the usual price of RM40, but had to pay a “redemption fee” of RM450 (about US$ 128) charged by my registrar to claim back the domain name. It’s 10 times more than the renewal price! I don’t know whose fault it was. But finally the customer got in touch with me, paid the amount, and got back the domain name.
About 40 days after the expiry of a top-level domain name (eg. .com and .net), it will go into a period called “redemption period” for 30 days, in which the domain owner needs to pay a “redemption fee” to claim back the domain. The amount is different among domain registrars. But it’s definitely much higher than the usual renewal price.
If the domain name is not redeemed within this period, it will go into another period called “pending delete” for 7 days, after which the domain name is made available for public registration.
So the “life cycle” of an expired domain name is like this:
Expired (40 days) -> Redemption Period (30 days) -> Pending Delete (7 days) -> Available
So what if you failed to renew your domain name and it falls into redemption period now? You either have to pay a lot now to redeem back the domain, or you can wait for another one month when the domain is made available again, but it may be snapped up by other people.
It is unfortunate that we have to pay so much to get back our domain name. But thanks and no thanks, there is such a 30-day “grace” period so that your domain will not be taken by others so early, but you have to part with much money to get it back 
It is not so gracious.
So don’t ever miss your domain name expiry!
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