Many thousands of domains are cancelled each day. Every day, thousands of short, memorable and highly brandable domain names are not renewed by their original registrants. There may be several reasons for domain expiration which lead to domain cancelled and available for re-registration. Sometimes owner of the domain forgot to pay renewal fees, they might no longer interested in domain.

Most of the best domains are pre-ordered through specialist domain catching services. If not they are available to register by anyone, but here again many are registered within seconds of release. How to know when a domain is going to be cancelled?  This graphic gives you an idea of the steps involved and will help you understand what you need to do to protect before someone else grab your valuable domain names.

Days indicated are not always followed by all registrars. For example, some names expire, but are not deleted from the registry for days or months afterward. Others are removed right away. Best way to protect your domain names from cancellation is enable auto-renewal feature. This is feature is easy to find inside any registrar domain control panel.

Active
Domain is initially registered for 1-10 years. Registration and expiry dates visible in WHOIS. Status is ACTIVE. Domain cannot be transferred for first 60 days between registrars. In this period domain owner is free to transfer domains to other user account with same registrar, also known as Domain Push. Domain Push is instant and it only require few authorization steps. Original registrant receives renewal notices as expiration date approaches. Renew a domain that is about to expire, or set up a domain to auto renew.

Expired
If the domain name passes expiry without renewal registrar status becomes REGISTRAR HOLD No response from registrant. Registrar may send delete command to the registry at its discretion. Shortly after the domain name goes past its expiration date the domain name will be deactivated. All domain services including the web page and email will no longer work. The domain may be renewed during this period. Renew an expired domain. The domain can still usually be renewed but may be deleted by the registrar at any time from 0-45 days after entering this state.

Redemption Grace Period
Domain has technically expired and usually enters the REDEMPTION PERIOD status unless the registrar has sold the domain at an auction, or wants to keep it. This period lasts exactly 30 days and your domain can be rescued for a premium sum by your registrar only direct from ICANN. Premium sum to rescue domain cost a lot, so do not let your domains reach this point.

Pending Delete
Counting from the Updated Date shown in WHOIS after 30 days the domain will enter PENDING DELETE for 5 days before being dropped and released by the central registry. It cannot be rescued at this point and your only option is to use a drop catch service or take a chance that no-one will re-register it and wait.  Domain can be registered by anyone, first come first serve; if the domain is valuable or has lots of traffic it will be snapped up by drop catchers in seconds after it has dropped. Consider drop catch service provided by Snapnames.com, Pool.com, Namejet.com, GoDaddy.com and recently Name.com

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