Finding the expiry date of your domain name is easy. Do a ‘whois’ lookup on your registrar or any other registrar and it would show up an expiry date for the domain.

Never forget, it can be fatal.

High profile businesses have some times failed to renew their domains and landed into big troubles. There are programs available which can book a domain name the moment it becomes available for registration due to expiration.

If someone sets up such a program against your domain name and you let it expire, you stand no chance and are sure to loose your name. Once it becomes some else’s, they could either not give it back to you or negotiate it for big money. There are cases where these kinds of transactions had taken place for 1000’s of dollars. While you have had to pay 10 or 15 dollars, you would be paying 100 or 1000 times that amount.

Loss and embarrassment:

The embarrassment and financial loss such a situation can bring in is unimaginable. Hence it is very very important that you renew your domain name in time. For personal sites, this may not be a great worry. However for businesses, point can not be stressed enough.

Registrar would remind you to renew through e-mail. However depending upon the criticality of the name involved, it is advisable to go and check with the registrar once in a while to see the expiry dates. It is even advisable to keep the domain name renewed for one two years in advance depending upon the importance of the name.

Next: Transferring domain names