You may contact your registrar during this period to renew your domain, but will nearly always have to pay an additional fee in order to retrieve your domain name from redemption.

The amount of redemption fee could be an additional $50 - $90 (US), but each registrar sets their own fees for this service, some higher, some lower. Whatever amount, it is in addition to your renewal fees.

After 30 day redemption period, domain enters a phase called “Pending Deletion”, which is approximately 5 days in length. During this phase, domain is essentially “frozen”. It can not be retrieved by original registrant and it can not be registered by another party.

At end of this phase (which in practice may not be a full 5 days) domain is once again available to first applicant that requests to register it.

============================== #3. Don’t count on it ============================== If your domain name expires, don’t assume that you can simply re-register name again once it becomes available, thereby saving redemption fees.

Even if it is a little known name, there are literally thousands of companies and individuals that may grab your expired domain second it’s available, preventing you from re-registering it.

Companies that offer to send targeted visitor traffic to your web site often do so by purchasing other expired domain names.

Companies that resell domain names may snag your expired domain in hopes of selling it back to you at a premium or selling it to another party.

Someone else may have just really wanted domain name you had and placed a back-order for it (a request to purchase if name becomes available).

Most organizations and individuals that purchase expired domains do so using automated software, and therefore have a much higher likelihood of obtaining name than an individual attempting to monitor availability by hand.

================== #4. Summary ================== Each registrar has their own policies regarding expired domains; therefore, time you have to rescue your domain from hands of others may differ from schedule above. Check your domain name now, and keep a reminder to renew it. That way, you can avoid potential issues and additional costs of an expired domain all together.

Happy Site Building,

Gary King http://www.siteblueprint.com

Domain registration is more like a lease than a purchase. You are renting second level domain (the mycompany bit) from Verisign for a specific amount of time normally between 1 and 10 years at a time. Most of organizations that allow you to register a second level domain charge a fee for each year that you register domain for. With almost all domain names you are also given option to renew your registration (lease) when it is close to running out (expiring).

Once you have registered a second level domain you are free to create as many third level domains (sometimes called sub domains) as you like. In our previous example www is a sub domain of itxcel.com

Most of registries that manage these top level domain names do not allow individuals or businesses to register domains directly with them. To register a domain you need to use a company like itXcel. We act as a registrar and send all required information and registration fee to registry. Registrars are useful as they hide differences that exist in each of registries from customer and provide a simple step by step process for registering a domain. A registrar also allows you to manage and track all your domains from one place rather than having to deal with a different company for each top level domain.

OK so I know what a domain name is, Why do need one? Can you image what a nightmare it would be if you had an email address like myname@123.246.128.255 or a web site address http://123.246.128.255/. These addresses are possible but not very easy to remember. Now if you register a domain name you could create an email address like myname@mycompany.com and a web site address like http://mycompany.com These are much easier to remember and look 100 times more professional.

One of important points about registering a domain is that once done you have an exclusive right to use that domain for as long as you keep domain registered in your name. If you do not renew a domain at end of it's registration period it will again become available for registration by someone else. For this reason even if you don't want or need a web site at moment, it's still a good idea to register a domain as soon as possible. Just imagine if your competition registered domain name of your company or product. Although there is a process in place to retrieve these domain it can be long and complicated. It is definitely simpler to spend a little money up front to secure your chosen domain names.

To find out what domains are available and to quickly and cheaply register them visit http://www.itxcel.com now and enter your desired name in domain search box.