The Life Cycle of a Domain Name

Many people misunderstand that once they have purchased a domain name, they actually own the domain name. This is not actually true, because the domain names are not purchased, instead domain names are ‘leased’ from the registry. Even if you look at a our domain name cyberwebservice.com, you will see that it does expire every year. If you renew your domain for 5 years, your domain name will be with your for that 5 years. Like that, you can register for a maximum of 10 years and after 10 years, again you have to renew it for another 10 years and so on.

You can check the domain expiry date by checking the whois database of each domain. Visit this url to check your domain expiry date 
https://cyberwebservice.supersite2.myorderbox.com/domain.php?action=whois

Each and every domain undergoes lot of phases in its journey from registration to deletion. This article provides an overview of the life-cycle of a gTLDs (generic top-level domains) such as .com, .net, .org, .biz and .info. By understanding the life cycle of a domain name, it is possible to retain a domain name that may have accidentally expired, or grab a domain name that has recently been deleted.

Domain Registration
Assume that you just registered your Domain Name. On the first day of registration your domain name is registered at the domain registry and Hosting is set up. During the first 4 days, it is still possible to have your domain name deleted from the registry if there is a spelling error and register a different domain name. But you have to pay a small penalty for changing the domain name. After 4 days your Domain Name cannot be revoked or deleted from the registry and it will be active for 1 year from the date of registration.

Domain Transfer
Once the domain is registered, the domain must stay with the current registrar for a minimum period of 60 days from the date of registration. After 60 days, Domain Transfer Lock is removed, and you can transfer your domain name to any ICANN accredited Registrar if desired.

Domain Expiry
The domain name will remain registered for the duration of the term you paid for. After this you will need to renew the domain name if you want to keep it. Cyber Web Service will send you renewal reminders a month or more before the domain is due to expire and we will send you three or four reminders to your registered email id. This makes it possible to renew the domain name early without losing any time.

Life cycle of a domain name

Why should we renew the domain before the expiry date?
We recommend you to renew your domain well before the expiry date because once the domain expires your website will not be visible and your emails also will stop functioning. Also when you renew an expired domain, it will take 24 to 48 hours for the domain to become active and functioning due to ISP caching.

What Happens to the Expired Domain?
When a domain name reaches its expiry date, it goes through a series of statuses before it is released entirely. As the owner of a domain that reaches its expiry, you can retrieve the domain easily in the first 40 to 45 days for .com or .net domain. If your domain TLD is .IN, then you should retrieve it in 14 days. This period is called as grace period. During the grace period, the domain name will stop resolving and all services will be terminated. Hosting and domain forwarding services will be disabled and any associated email addresses will stop receiving new email; senders will receive a bounce back error message if they try to send an email of an expired domain.

When the Grace Period Ends, Redemption Period begins which for a period of 30 days. After the grace period the domain name is deleted from our registration database. The domain registry will provide an additional 30-day redemption period. During the redemption period the domain owner can have their domain name redeemed by paying a redemption fee in addition to the cost of a one year domain and hosting renewal. During redemption, you may notice the domain’s expiration date in WHOIS lookups has moved ahead one year in the registry database. This is a temporary auto renewal at the registry.

70 Days After domain expiration, redemption period ends and the domain steps into “Pending Delete” status at the registry for up to five days. During this time, it is not possible to redeem or recover the domain name. You will need to wait while the domain name is deleted before you can register it again. This also means that other people can register the domain which risks you losing it.

After the five day pending delete period, the domain will be deleted from the registry. At this point, the domain will be available to the general public for new registration.

Conclusion: Renew Early!! If you want to keep your domain name then the best thing to do is to renew your domain as early as possible. This will save money and also reduce the risk of you losing your domain name.