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How to Bring Expired Domain Names Back from the Dead
16th February 2025
This is a true story of a domain name that expired and what you can do to get it back. But any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
About this time last year, I took on a customer of a family run business. Their original website had been created by a “friend”. This friend had created the website, set up their .co.uk domain name, their hosting and kept it updated.
Then to cut a long story short, this friendship went sour. The friend stopped communication and as a result I got a frantic phone call from the client to take it from here.
Everything was going well, their website was re-designed, we set up on a new hosting provider and everything was going great. All we needed now was the access details so could set up the domain name to point to the new server.
And that was a problem. Because the friend was not playing any more. This was a red flag.
Is the domain name in your name?
This was my first question. If the website is at least in your name, you can go to central registry (Nominet for .co.uk, ICANN for .com) and dispute/claim your domain name.
Sadly, GDPR doesn’t allow Joe Public to view a domain owner’s personal details anymore. So we could only assume that it wasn’t set up in their name at all.
This was confirmed when the client requested this and the friend replied he would change this when the domain name expires in 6 months time. Red Flag number 2.
In the meantime we used a new domain name if just to launch the website.
The Honourable Thing
So fast forward to expiry day and I try the domain name transfer feature on my registrar. The friend will get the email and in theory, he just needs to log in and change the IPS Tag to the new registrar.
Just so it wasn’t a big suprise, the client also sent a nice polite email just keeping the friend in the picture of what was going to happen and what he needed to do.
They got nothing back. Not a sausage. I however got a notice from my registrar telling me that the transfer had been refused by the owner.
I tried this a couple of times. And got the same outcome. Oh boy.
Expired. Now what?
So of course the domain name expired. So that meant that now the domain name would be released and we can call first dibs on it, right? No.
A domain name doesn’t become free as soon as someone forgets to pay for it. It varies depending who you are registered with but domain registrars tend to give you a grace period of around 30 days before that domain name is suspended officially. It can still be renewed in that time but friend did not take any action.
When a domain name is finallly suspended, the registrar cannot touch it. But now neither could we. In fact there is a separate little problem now.
The unwritten rule
Everything I have written so far, I already knew, but this bit was a little bit of a grey area.
So, when a domain name is finally suspended by a domain registrar, is goes into a quarantine period for 91 days. On the 92nd day, it gets deleted. On this 92nd day only then is it available for anyone to reclaim or register.
The salvation
By this time, I was having nightmares about Google Calendar reminders set for 90 days time and whether I should be getting up at midnight to ensure I register this little delight.
I mentioned this whole escapade to my IT friend, Sebastian, From T Star Tech. He sent me the link of Dropped.uk. At Dropped, you can back order a suspended domain name and they keep an eye on the dates and do all the donkey work so you don’t have to.
You have to pay for the actual back order but only if they successully obtain the domain name for you.
The 92nd day
So finally we get to the day where the domain name was going to be deleted. I checked the login panel at dropped and the actual release date was announced for 10.30am. I did have a training session booked for the same time, but thankfully the client was late for his meeting. This enabled me to check at the exact time the name would be released.
Almost immediately it came up with “Successful, please pay us”. So I did. In this case I paid £35, which considering that they’d taken the guesswork out of what had been a long saga and rescued my client, was an absolute bargain.
All I had to do now was add the correct registrar details and transfer the domain name to my actual registrar and we were good to go.
Cue me sending a good news phone call to my client. Which I wish I could do many more of!
Happy Ending
So the domain name now redirects to the current website as it should have done a year ago.
Whether it still holds any of its former weight from an SEO perspective will definitely be covered in a later post.
The Takeaway from this
I already know that I harp on a lot in my blog posts, but at least hear me out on this one:
The domain name on a website is vital. More vital than the design, layout (these can be changed). But do yourself a favour and either register the domain name yourself. In your name.
Reliable Web designers etc can do this on your behalf, but be transparent from the start and ask for documentation. This is a service that I provide when asked to.
And just remember, even if you trust your friend into doing something that you are not sure about, remember relationships of any sort can go sour.
Sometimes its just easier to be brave or get in the professionals.