Incident
Domain Expiry Outages: What Happens and How to Prevent Them
Domain expiry has taken down major services — including Microsoft, Foursquare, and various payment processors. The pattern is always the same: auto-renew was off, or the payment method expired.
When a domain expires, everything that depends on the name stops — not gradually. DNS disappears, so your site, mail, APIs, and cert renewals all fail together. Big companies hit this through process failure, not ignorance.
Why expiry happens to serious companies
It's never negligence at the technical level. It's process failure:
- Domain registered by someone who left
- Payment card expired and nobody noticed
- Auto-renew was off on a "secondary" domain that turned out to be critical
- Acquisition: new team didn't know which domains mattered
What the outage looks like
At expiry, DNS resolution fails for the domain. Everything that depends on it stops at once — not gracefully, not with a warning message. Just stops.
- Website: NXDOMAIN
- Email: immediate bounce
- APIs: connection refused
- SSL renewal: fails (domain can't be verified)
- CDN: origin resolution fails
Recovery timeline
Grace period (0-30 days): renew at normal price
Redemption period (30-75 days): renew at $100-200 redemption fee
After redemption: domain released to public
What to do
- Enable auto-renew on every domain
- Use a payment method that doesn't expire (virtual card with no expiry, or update annually)
- Add a calendar reminder 60 days before expiry as backup
- Monitor expiry dates with DomainPreflight WHOIS
Check your domain expiry
Open WHOIS →FAQ
Has domain expiry really affected major companies?
Yes — Microsoft accidentally let hotmail.co.uk expire, Foursquare had an expiry incident, and many payment processors have had outages from domain lapses.
What is the redemption period?
After the grace period (30-45 days), domains enter redemption — usually 30-45 more days at $100-200 fee. After that, the domain is released.
Can I recover my domain after it expires?
Yes during the grace and redemption periods. After redemption, the domain becomes available to anyone.
How do I monitor domain expiry?
Run DomainPreflight WHOIS — shows exact expiry date with risk tier. Set up auto-renew at your registrar as the primary protection.
What if the domain was registered by someone who left the company?
Contact the registrar with proof of company ownership. Most registrars have a process for this — act before expiry, not after.