Domains are not eternal. Once you purchase one, you will keep on renewing it so that you can continue using it.
Sadly, thousands of people usually forget to renew their domains in time, and some completely forget about them such that they end up losing them.
The loss of your domain can mean serious interruptions of your business, and it is only fair that you know about the domain expiration cycle so that you are not caught flat-footed.
When you are buying a domain in Kenya, just know that it will be up for renewal.
About the Domain Expiration Cycle
The cycle for domain expiration normally varies with the top-level domain. Most of the top-level domains will require that you renew them before the expiration dates.
However, the majority of them will have a grace period of up to one month after they expire. You can always renew the domains during the grace period.
If domains are not renewed before the expiry or during the grace period, they may be auctioned off to those interested in them.
And, if no one is interested in them, they will be placed in a pending delete status, after which, they will be available to any other person interested in them.
Keep your domains in Kenya from expiring
When buying a domain in Kenya, you should be aware that some domains will expire on purpose, while a good number of them will expire by accident.
There are certain measures that you can take to ensure that your domains in Kenya don’t expire by accident. Here is a brief look at some of these measures-:
Learn to renew your domain well before expiration dates
One of the best ways to ensure your domains never expire is to renew them early. Sadly, this is something that even some of the top organizations, including Fortune 500 companies forget to do.
Most of the domain registration companies in Kenya can allow renewals of up to five or ten years. If you can afford to do it, just do it once and forget about renewal for another five years or a decade.
Set domain auto-renewal on your account
If you know that you are the forgetful type, then on your hosting account, set your domains for auto-renewal.
In this manner, they will always be renewed in time and you will never have to worry about expiry.
The good news is that this feature is absolutely free with most of the web hosting companies in Kenya. You won’t have to spend anything extra other than the actual renewal cost.
Ensure the renewal payment method is up-to-date
You may set your domain to auto-renewal but it ends up getting expired because the payment couldn’t go through.
This usually happens when the payment method for your auto-renewal is not up to date. Maybe your credit card on file expired before the renewal, hence, it couldn’t be charged.
To avoid this, simply ensure that your auto-renewal payment method is properly updated.