Well, this may happen more often than you think. One fine day you open up your browser and tried to open up one of your websites which you have not opened up for the last few weeks, you suddenly found a parking page instead of your website. Surprised, you hurriedly login to your domain registrar’s account and saw the domain has indeed expired. To add to your headache, you found that the domain expired more than a month ago! Now what should you do?
Well, there is always a solution. First, there are two extended periods after a domain expires, within which you can re-acquire your domain back into your account.
The first period is called the Domain Re-Activation Period and it last for about 30 days (sometimes 28 days or even less) after the domain expiration date. Within this 30 days period, you can re-activate your domain by simply logging in into your domain registrar’s account and clicking on the “Reactivate Domains” section (or check for something which says pending or de-activated domains in your domain management section). If the domain you are looking for is withing this Reactivation Period, you will find the domain in this section. Just select the domain and reactivate it. It will usually cost you an amount same as that of a domain renewal fee.
BUT, if the domain has been expired for more than 30 days, then it goes to an extended period called Extended Redemption Grace Period or the ERGP which last for about 60 days (once again this vary and go up to even 120 days) before the domain is deleted and sent back to the Pool. Yes, you can re-acquire your domain within this period by contacting your domain registrar. But the problem is that, it will cost you a ERGP fee of $160 PLUS whatever fee your domain registrar decides to get you back the domain ownership. Usually, it will be $160 + Renewal Fee. So, if your domain is very important to you, you can pay the fee and get it back. But if it is not, the option is left to your imagination!
Anyway, I hope this article was helpful. Please do leave by your feedbacks.
160 bucks for re-acquiring a domain is too much. Best thing is to enable auto renew for all important domains. That way at least the important domains will not expire.