A domain and hosting are two purchases from two contracts. Hosting can be paid for years ahead and the site still disappears the day the domain lapses, because the name no longer points anywhere.

What stops

  • The site, immediately - usually replaced by a parking page.
  • Mail, immediately. Incoming messages bounce and are not held anywhere.
  • Anything that signs in with an address at that domain, which is often more than you expect.

The timeline

  • Day 0-30, expired. Renew at the normal price. Everything comes back within hours.
  • Day 30-60, redemption. Still yours, at a redemption fee that is usually many times the renewal price.
  • After that, released. Anyone can register it, and popular names are taken within seconds by services that watch for exactly this.
Renew inside the first thirty days. The redemption fee is not a penalty the registrar chose - it is set by the registry, and nobody can waive it.

Check the real date

whois yourdomain.com | grep -i expiry

Trust that, not an email. Renewal reminders go to the registrant address on the domain, which is frequently a mailbox at the domain itself - so when it expires, the warnings stop arriving too.

Stop it happening again

  • Turn on auto-renew AND check the card on file has not expired - an auto-renew with a dead card is not an auto-renew.
  • Set the registrant contact to an address at a DIFFERENT domain.
  • Register for several years. It costs the same per year and removes the event entirely.
Domain and hosting with the same provider means one invoice and one renewal date. Split across two, each assumes the other is being watched.