Keep your domain from running out

Your domain name (YourWebsite.com) is rented, usually a year at a time. If the renewal fails, your website and your email stop together, and after about two months someone else can buy the name.

See your renewal date with Site health.

Three checks, once a year

  1. Log in where you bought the domain (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace Domains, your web designer…) and turn on auto-renew.
  2. Check the card on that account hasn't expired. An expired card is a common reason renewals fail.
  3. Check the account's email address is one you still read. Renewal warnings go there, and often to a long-gone designer or an old work address.

If it has already run out

Act today. For .com, .net and .org there's usually a grace period of about 30 days when you can renew at the normal price, then about 30 days when it costs far more to rescue, then it's released for anyone to register. Other endings (.us, .co, .io and the rest) have their own rules, some much shorter. Contact whoever you bought it from right away.

Don't know where you bought it?

Search your email for the domain name and "renewal" or "invoice". Or ask whoever built your site: often the designer registered it in their own account. If so, ask them to move it into yours, so you're never locked out.