If TSDG, or another reputable company DON'T administer your domain name, then you really should read this.
When you 'buy' a domain name, you're actually leasing it. You can't buy a domain name forever; you buy it for a year, two years, five years...
Once that time is up, your domain name goes back on the market.
I have seen this happen to several clients. In some cases, they have been able to get their domain name back (don't ask at what cost!) in other cases, they have lost it forever. Just think what that means...
Let's imagine that we lost tsdg.com; we let it expire and someone else bought it. A four-letter domain commands a lot of money and the purchaser would probably try to charge us a five or six figure sum to get it back. So let's say we can't afford that and have to let it go.
All those people who go to our site, can't see it anymore. It's gone. All the people who search Google for 'design agency', 'restaurant design' or one of the hundreds of search terms which are used to find our site are now taken nowhere.
Or worse.
Imagine if someone bought your domain name and put a porn site on there? Or your competitor bought it and had it redirected to his own site? Yes, these things happen all the time.
On a less dramatic note, we would have to redo all our stationery, which has tsdg.com printed on it - that's letterheads, business cards, envelopes, compliment slips, folders, large envelopes for folders ... the list goes on and it's expensive. For some companies, that would include changing their signage, the vehicles and other items.
And remember that we would lose our email addresses too. Any email sent to [email protected] would no longer come to us. All those customers, potential clients, vendors, friends, acquaintances would be emailing in vain.
Pretty soon, the world would assume that we'd gone out of business.
So why on earth do people let their domain names expire? There are several reasons. One is that, well, a year slips by so quickly and no-one thought to make a note in the diary reminding them to renew the domain. Yes, the company who you registered the domain with will email you in advance to warn you of the expiration but we know that email is not 100% reliable all the time. The email might be undelivered for a lot of reasons. A common reason is that the email address used at the time of registration no longer exists. (Have YOU changed your email address since you registered your domain?) Believe me, people lose domain names every day. Various websites estimate that 30,000 are lost every day.
So, there's good news and bad news; let's do the bad news first.
The bad news is that there is nothing WE can do if you administer your own domain and you lose it. There is nothing ANYONE can do. If someone else has bought your domain, you have NO RIGHTS WHATOEVER. If your domain has been bought by someone else, they will either be using it for their own purposes (hopefully NOT porn) or they will hold it to ransom until you pay up.
The good news is that if your domain is administered by TSDG, it will be automatically renewed when it expires. No notes in the diary required.
Related topics:
Email - you get what you pay for
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