Your domain name is the world's access to your website and typically - your email, so you need to make sure that it does not expire.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not "own" the domain name - it is on-loan to you (via a rental agreement) from your country's Top Level Domain Name Authority, rather like a phone number that belongs to the telecomms company.
Domains must be renewed at the end of your current rental period, otherwise they will eventually return to the "domain name pool" and be available for someone else to rent.
At 30 days prior to expiry, you should receive an automated notification to inform you that your domain is due to expire. Shortly after this, you will also receive an automated invoice which you should pay on time to avoid any domain renewal failure. If you allow your domain name to lapse, it will mean your website, email and any associated services will stop working.
When a domain name is not renewed before the expiry date, it goes into an "expiration" state for 30 days and then into a "cancellation" stage, for a further 30 days. During the expiration period, it may be possible for us to retrieve the domain on you behalf for an additional administrational fee. During cancellation, it is much more difficult (and expensive) to retrieve the domain as it is in the process of being returned to the public domain name pool, where anyone will be able to register it. Following cancellation, it will not be possible to retrieve it for you, if someone else has registered it.
How to prevent a domain name expiring
The best thing you can do is set up an "auto-renewal" facility for your domain renewal. That way, even if you forget it or miss the renewal notice, it should auto-renew.
To do so, you'll need to add your credit card to your account simply login and add it as a payment method. Then, navigate to any outstanding invoice and choose "credit card" as the default payment method. You may wish to contact us, so that we can ensure your credit card is set at the default payment method for domain renewals in future. This is important if you have multiple services with us because some services can be set to use bank transfer, and others set to be credit card as the preferred payment method.
Please do note however that you will still need to check the credit card is kept up to date on your account.
If you have any questions, please let us know