What Is the Most Buyer Friendly Expired Domain Timeline Today? (7.Viewing)

I do not think buyers expect every registrar to use the same model. But I do think buyers value clarity, consistency, and a point where they can trust that a win is really a win.

So for those who have used a lot of platforms, which expired domain timeline feels most buyer friendly to you today?

Do you mean which registrar gives a lot of grace period after a domain expires, for the domain holder to still be able to renew?

Not sure why a registrar wouldn't grant their customers the maximum timeline like Baremetal does. And no baloney extra redemption fees. Maybe they made sense when there was more customer service required to do the job. And as far as I understand, there's no real reason it shouldn't all be a simple click and pay scenario for the customer to redeem/renew a domain for the standard renewal fee.

Personally I like the grace period and such but I can't say I understand it. I don't know who started it, in all other aspects of life expired means expired. If you can't manage your catalog get someone who understands it to manage it for you.

What I think is happening is that domainers know there is a grace so they neglect renewing thinking it's ok I have a grace period when in reality they should have made up their mind and renewed it 30 days prior to expiration.

The grace period mucks up auctions and all types of transactions, not to mention the oh woeth me complaints on namepros of people forgetting. Listen if you haven't done it in 30-60 days grace you don't deserve to ever get that domain back, plain and simple.

The whole grace thing should never be more than 30 days in my opinion, at that 30 days is generous already.

From the registrar's side the grace period isn't great as the registrar is out of the money while you make up the mind whether to keep the domain or not. For most TLDs, there's an autorenew that happens and is deducted from the registrar's balance/credit and only credited back when the domain name is either deleted or transferred out. It makes accounting and reconciliation complicated and of course also means the registrar has to have a higher available balance at the registry.

FM said:

From the registrar's side the grace period isn't great as the registrar is out of the money while you make up the mind whether to keep the domain or not. For most TLDs, there's an autorenew that happens and is deducted from the registrar's balance/credit and only credited back when the domain name is either deleted or transferred out. It makes accounting and reconciliation complicated and of course also means the registrar has to have a higher available balance at the registry.

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True. However, any registrar worth their salt would already have robust processes in place to handle this. Cutting the grace period shorter than the maximum allowed would certainly lead to fewer renewals - and the profits on those extra renewals should more than make up for what is effectively a short term loan to the registrant. So I can't imagine it is actually in the registrar's benefit to cut short the grace period.

rlm said:

True. However, any registrar worth their salt would already have robust processes in place to handle this. Cutting the grace period shorter than the maximum allowed would certainly lead to fewer renewals - and the profits on those extra renewals should more than make up for what is effectively a short term loan to the registrant. So I can't imagine it is actually in the registrar's benefit to cut short the grace period.

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The data when the renewals happen be able to confirm where the renewal sweet spot is. It's not something that I had a chance to look into in detail in the past, maybe @NiceNIC (thanks for starting this thread), WHC ( @MarineN), @CanSpace, @bmetal or the other registrars can/want to share some high-level info.

I would imagine that it's a large percentage of domains that only get renewed once they are actually disrupted due to expiry.

MapleDots said:

What I think is happening is that domainers know there is a grace so they neglect renewing thinking it's ok I have a grace period when in reality they should have made up their mind and renewed it 30 days prior to expiration.

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This. Oh my god this.

Because domainers have such massive profiles, and I assume are trying to manage their cash flow, they very often wait until literally the very last second of the grace period before renewing their domains. Because of this they also very often end up missing their renewals entirely. I can't even begin to think of how many times this has happened and clients have reached out to us in a panic.

CanSpace said:

This. Oh my god this.

Because domainers have such massive profiles, and I assume are trying to manage their cash flow, they very often wait until literally the very last second of the grace period before renewing their domains. Because of this they also very often end up missing their renewals entirely. I can't even begin to think of how many times this has happened and clients have reached out to us in a panic.

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Yeah I remember clients like that from WHC... Domainers are notorious for that, for sure.

WHC does 40 days grace on .com and .ca.

For .co, WHC has no grace period, which is strange because they used to.

At Namespro, I was able to transfer out a .co to WHC a day after it expired, so it seems every registrar is different.

I do fall into the trap of renewing during the grace period. The bad part is when your domain is in grace it doesn't resolve, so there is a domain you can't sell via a lander. So I do renew some of my higher value domains before expiry so they don't go dark even for a few days. Or if I make a good domain sale, I'll put a chunk of that into catching up on renewals.