GoDaddy Changes Domain Name Expiry Process

I want to share an email from my GoDaddy account representative about a change to the domain name expiry process. I believe this is going to have an impact on the auction process as well, and this should be good news for people who have called for changes at GoDaddy Auctions.

The renewal timeline will shift from 42 days to 30 days. From my perspective, it looks like this means that a domain name that is won at auction will no longer be permitted to be renewed by the former registrant. The email I received did not mention anything about the impact on auctions, so that is my interpretation of the news.

Here’s the email I received a moment ago:

We are making a change to our domain name expiry process and wanted to give you enough notice to make decisions on your portfolio. GoDaddy is changing the domain renewal timeline from 42 to 30 days for most domains. Based on our research, less than 1% of our customers renew after 30 days.

Starting Dec 4, the following changes will happen to expired domain names:

• After Day 5 of expiration, DNS, email, hosting, redirecting and any other DNS-dependent services will be interrupted and stop working.

• After Day 30 of expiration, domain names are no longer able to be renewed or transferred away.

We wanted to give a heads -up so you have enough notice to make decisions on your portfolio. As always please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

31 COMMENTS

  1. Godaddy is going after our domain names. Best thing is to avoid Godaddy for registering/keeping your domain name. Find a registry who is not auction house.
    TRANSFER OUT FROM GODADDY.

    • I don’t get your point and I think you are mistaken.

      I think this is much better than GoDaddy opting to retire GoDaddy Auctions and keep all valuable expired domain names for its NameFind portfolio.

      With this change, instead of thinking about whether or not you will actually get a domain name you bought at auction, you know the company will be able to fulfill it.

    • This option would hurt cashflow for them big time, now they get you to pay for the domain upfront, they make 20% commission on the sale if you are going to sell it, plus if you sign up for any services which they offer many. Also it gives their website lots of traffic.

      Godaddy needs customers, and some customers need Godaddy.

      Funny people have been asking about this for years, one blow up for Rick Schwartz and it is done overnight?

    • Hi Ryan,

      As much as we respect and value Rick’s opinion, this isn’t about the domain name aftermarket. We saw that of the customers that renewed domain names, less than 1 percent renewed between days 30 and 42. We are optimizing our systems. To make sure we continue to provide a great customer experience, we have been working on this change for more than a year to make sure we alert our customers in appropriate ways.

    • Honestly, I’d letter to them retire GoDaddy Auctions then start taking away our rights.

      GoDaddy just became a domainer folks. This is really bad news.

    • So, screw the 1% which is going to be disproportionately made up of sick people, people in national disasters, etc….

      You are basically saying screw the 1%.

      Thumbs down GoDaddy. This is really, really bad. You are now not looking after our interests anymore.

  2. Owner should be given full oppertunity to redeem the asset, just like in any other scenario. Why you want to stay with some one who’s main purpose is to auction you out(very conflicting). stay away and go to safer places, which are offering full redemption PERIOD/oppertunity.

  3. i prefer not to use registrars that don’t offer full renewal periods…uniregistry..40 days!

    dynadot used to be 40 days but again the auction whiners forced them to change it to 30.

    who else offers full renewal periods?

    • Name.com sucks 25 days, Namecheap.com is 27, Epik is 15 days, everyone wants to sell your domain to cash in $$$, so Uniregistry it is!

    • Life happens, you forget, sometimes you like to mess with cheap end users who are waiting for you to drop it, and force them into a deal after then watching it for 380 days into expiry to have their heart ripped out on a renewal etc… It is good in life to have options, and you want to choose the partner who gives you the most options as possible, not ones who want to sell your domains for greater profit.

    • I see what you’re saying, but I would rather choose a partner based on more critical factors like great 24/7/365 phone support, US-domiciled…etc. The renewal cycle would not even be on my radar screen. If I let something expire and don’t renew it by day 30, an extra 12 days is going to do nothing for me.

    • its not that I need it, though sometimes it helps when finances are short or something comes up, etc.When you have tens of thousands of domains to renew, it can get difficult to afford at times.

    • Got it. I keep a trim portfolio of around 500 names, so that is not something that would ever come up for me. Even if I had more names, I am not sure an extra 12 days would do anything. Renewals go on the credit card anyway.

    • Even a portfolio of 500 names, costs roughly $5000 per year to renew.

      Not speaking about your financial situaiton, but maybe someone else is in a dryspot, and we know how deals tend to just pop out of the blue somedays, maybe that 12 days, they get a $2500 sale, and they can catch a break.

      Life maybe rosy for the Rick Schwartz who is coming off a multi million dollar sales week, and is out yacht shopping, but others as JZ said have bigger renewals, and such.

      Uniregistry is a great options, they provide all the services,plus the 40 day window, not much downside.

    • Yeah right. You should lose your domain after being a day late. j/k

      What if it were your house? If you were 30 days late you lose your home? There are reasons why it generally takes 90 days to get someone out of a home.

      Elliott, with almost any major asset you buy laws have been passed to protect the consumer.

      C’mon now, there are lots of reasons you might need more time.

    • People get notices 90+/- days out. Then they get an additional 30 days after the name already expires. From my vantagepoint, 30 days is sufficient.

      When you’re talking about housing, you are talking about a much larger payment than $10/year. There is also a major difference between someone’s home and their domain name. If their domain name is so important to them, paying the $10 renewal fee on time – or even within 30 days late – should be enough. If not, I doubt an extra 12 days will be much help.

      Again, I have never been in a position (thankfully) where I need more time to pay for something.

    • On a related note, if anyone is ever in a position that they have a very important domain name to them but can’t afford the $10 renewal fee, please let me know. I am more than happy to pay GoDaddy or another registrar $10 to help them out.

      If someone has dozens, hundreds, or thousands of domain names and can’t pay the renewal fees on time or within 30 days, they should probably reevaluate their portfolio and perhaps not invest in domain names any longer.

  4. merky waters, imagine if DT ever tweeted on it. Its my name til expiry, then i can renew for 30 days, then i cant, but then maybe i can redeem after 45 through 65 days. But maybe it “disappeared” and maybe it didnt….

    i guess the question is does the “no renewal” mean not at the regular price or owner doesnt have redemption rights either.

    The post expiration/ pre-redemption period where a registrar “finds” the name in its account with a T & S that says the registrant surrenders has always been clear as mud.

    For me a benefit of uniregistry is they give me my full grace period.

    Page Howe

  5. Some thoughts on this –

    1.) The change certainly doesn’t seem all that beneficial to registrants in my view. While it might be rare domains are redeemed after day 30, it does happen and sometimes for very valid reasons like illness.

    2.) This is a massive change to registrant’s rights to only give (3) weeks notice, especially if it has was being worked on for a year.

    3.) This change will obviously stop the free appraisal game where an owner will let the domain expire then transfer it out after it ends. It will also stop after the auction bidder circumvention.

    4.) If the auction schedule is not being changed, it means it will still go to auction on day 26. That gives the registrant 4-5 days after it goes to auction where they can still renew it.

    5.) For a multi-billion dollar company with massive resources, I am not sure why GoDaddy can’t figure out the timing when it comes to auctions. Other venues like NameJet that deal in expired domains, when the auction starts it can no longer be redeemed.

    Brad

  6. I thing it is not a good move for Godaddy. They only want profit from expired auctions. We have Universal agreement, that the cycle of expired domains process until drop has been regulated. We have still able to obtain our domains with $100 fee before completely dropped. So if after 30 days some one wants to pay the fee, Godaddy not allowed to refuse to do so.. It is Universal rule, not Godaddy rule..

    • You make a good point, hopefully godaddy legal went over this, but from what I read that after 30 days, it can’t be renewed, which means redemption either.

      On Day 26 at Name.com your domain is gone, sold, and there is nothing they can do to give it back to you, happend to me twice over there.

  7. I looked it up on the ICANN website. I think GoDaddy was in violation before anyway. The Renewal Grace Period for ICANN is 45 days, followed by a 30-day Redemption Grace Period. So domain owners should have actually 75 days to redeem their domains. This might be an interesting topic for an intellectual property attorney.

    In looking at many of the registrars, most of them are in violation. Hover is the only one that seems to be honoring the 75 day ICANN Redemption Period Policy. Is this a class action law suit in the making?

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