Domain expired and website down: what to do

First, work out what actually broke

If your website is down, three separate things could be responsible, and people often mix them up.

• The domain is the name customers type, such as yourbusiness.ca. You rent it from a company called a registrar, usually for one or more years at a time.
• The hosting is the computer that stores your pages and serves them to visitors. It is a different service, often from a different company, with its own bill.
• DNS is the directory that tells the internet which hosting your domain points to. It is usually managed by the registrar or the host.

When the domain lapses, the name stops pointing anywhere. Your hosting can be perfectly healthy and paid for, yet nobody can reach it. That is why an expired domain looks like a dead website, and why it often takes your email down at the same moment.

Find out who your registrar is

Look through your email for renewal notices or receipts, because the registrar is the company that has been billing you for the name. If you can’t find one, use a public domain lookup. Searching your domain in a free WHOIS or RDAP lookup tool will usually show the registrar, the expiry date and the status of the domain. The owner’s details are often hidden for privacy, but the status line tells you whether the name has expired.

If an employee or a web designer registered the domain for you, it may sit in their account. Ask for it to be moved into yours before anything goes wrong.

What happens when a domain expires

Every registry sets its own rules, but the pattern is similar, and it often gives you more time than people expect. Do not count on it.

1. Renewal grace period. Right after the expiry date the name usually still belongs to you. Your registrar may switch off the website, replace it with a parked page, or stop email, but you can normally renew at the ordinary price.
2. Redemption period. If nobody renews, the domain moves into a redemption grace period. It is still recoverable, but the registrar has to ask the registry to restore it and charges an extra fee, often much higher than a normal renewal. For .com the redemption period is 30 days.
3. Deletion and release. After that the domain is deleted and becomes available to anyone. Domain investors watch expiring names closely, and a name with old links and an established reputation can be picked up within minutes.

The exact number of days in each phase depends on the registry and on your registrar’s own policy. For .ca names, CIRA, the Canadian registry, has its own rules, and your registrar can tell you where your domain stands. Ask them directly rather than assuming the .com timeline applies.

The usual causes

• Auto-renew was switched off, or was never switched on.
• The card on file expired or was replaced, and the payment failed.
• Renewal reminders went to an old email address, or to the person who registered the domain and left.

What to do today

1. Log in to the registrar account and check the status. If there is a “Renew” button, use it. This is the cheapest version of the fix.
2. If the registrar says the domain is in redemption, ask for the restore price and decide whether the name is worth it. For most local businesses it is.
3. Once renewed, allow some time for the site and email to come back. DNS changes can take a few hours to reach everyone.
4. Switch on auto-renew, update the card and put a second contact email on the account.

Email stopped too

Business email on your own domain, such as hello@yourbusiness.ca, depends on the same domain. While it is lapsed, messages sent to you may bounce or be lost, and the sender may see an error. After you renew, email should resume, but messages sent during the gap are often lost, so ask regular customers to resend anything important.

If someone else already bought it

Once a domain has been released, anyone can register it, and we can’t promise you will get it back. You can ask the new owner, through the contact details of the registrar or the site, whether they will sell, though the price is theirs to set. You can check whether the name is on an auction service. Or you can choose a close alternative, such as another extension or a slightly different name, and move your listings to it. If the new owner is using your business name to mislead your customers, get advice before acting.

In the meantime, update your Google Business Profile, your directory listings and your social pages to the new address so the old link stops sending people to a dead page.

Checking the rest of the basics

A lapsed domain is often a sign that nobody is watching the site. Our free website report card will tell you whether your site loads, whether it is secure and whether the basics are in place. We looked at how often this happens in our Atlantic Canada website study. If you need a new site, see what DeMark builds for local businesses on our websites page.