List every domain the business has registered, decide which to keep and redirect and which to let lapse on purpose, and put the keepers in one account that renews on a current card.

The domains nobody lists

Ask the owner of a small business how many domain names it has, and the answer is usually one: the address on the website.

The registrar account often says otherwise. A short name bought for a radio campaign. A misspelling a previous designer suggested. The name the business traded under before it changed.

Some renew every year without anybody deciding to keep them. Some have lapsed. Some point at a server that was switched off years ago.

None of it shows on the main website, so it goes unnoticed until a customer mentions a strange page, or an email to an old address comes back.

How a business collects them

The fourth is the one with the most behind it: years of links, printed material and email addresses, all still sending people there long after the business moved on.

What happens when one lapses

When a renewal is missed, the website and email on the domain usually stop within days.

The registrar holds the name for a few weeks so the owner can still renew, and many allow a recovery for about a month more at a much higher fee. Then anyone can register it.

Names with links and visitors are often snapped up quickly, by companies that fill expired domains with advertising or offer them for sale.

The old links and brochures still work. They just lead to somebody else.

Old email is the bigger risk

Whoever registers a lapsed domain can receive mail sent to any address at it. That includes password reset emails for every account still set up with an old address.

Customers and suppliers who still have that address keep writing to it too, sometimes with orders, invoices or personal details.

So before any domain that ever handled email is allowed to go, every account using it moves to a current address. It is the step most often skipped.

The renewal that failed quietly

Most lapses are not decisions. Automatic renewal tries a card that has since expired or been replaced, and the charge fails.

The warnings go to the email address on the account. If that address is at the expiring domain, the last ones arrive at a mailbox that has just stopped working.

If the address belongs to somebody who has left, the warnings arrive and sit there. Checking the card and the contact address in each registrar account takes minutes.

Finding all of them

Log in to every registrar account the business has, then search the business email for renewal, registration and domain, which turns up invoices from accounts nobody remembers.

Check card statements for registrar charges, and ask your web company and any past agency what they registered for you. The hosting control panel and Search Console list domains too.

Public lookups will not do it. Since last year they hide the owner's details for many domains, so your own account and billing records are the reliable source.

A worked example

A home inspection company changed its name four years ago, when the founder sold it. The old domain redirected to the new site, renewing automatically on the company card.

Last spring the card was replaced after a fraud alert. The renewal failed, and the warnings went to an address at the old domain that nobody checked any more.

By the summer the name belonged to somebody else and showed advertising for other inspection companies. Agents' websites still linked to it, and the company's Facebook login still used an address at it.

The name could not be recovered. The company moved the login that week and asked its main referring agents to update their links.

Its four other domains went into one account, on a card whose expiry date is now in the calendar.

A decision for each

Each domain on the list gets one of three answers.

Redirect it: anything printed, linked from other sites, likely to be typed, or close enough to your name to be mistaken for it.

Keep it for email: an old domain people still write to, forwarding to current addresses with an automatic reply, for as long as mail arrives.

Let it go on purpose: an old campaign name with no links left, or a name never used. First confirm that no account uses it and no mail arrives at it.

Redirects that work

A kept domain should send each visitor to the matching page of the main site, permanently and in one step: the old services page to the new one, the campaign address to its offer.

Cover the secure address too. Simple registrar forwarding often has no certificate, so a visitor following an https link sees a browser warning instead of your site.

Avoid masked forwarding, which shows the main site in a frame under the old address. Shared links always lead to the home page, and search engines see an almost empty page.

Then test each one with and without www, over http and https.

One account, one list

Transfer the keepers into a single account in the business's name, with two people receiving its notices.

Renew the main domain several years at a time, and keep the list, with each domain's purpose and expiry date, among the business's important records.

The counter-case

With only one domain ever registered, under one name, there is little to do here beyond checking the card and the contact address.

Nor is every variation worth owning. Dozens of misspellings and endings cost money every year; a close misspelling and the other common ending usually cover it.

And a domain with no links, no email history and no printed trace can simply lapse, once somebody has checked those three things.

For everyone else, it is an afternoon: list the domains, decide for each, and renew the keepers from one place.

The inventory, in order

  1. Log in to every registrar account you can find.
  2. Search your email for old domain invoices.
  3. List each domain with its expiry date.
  4. Move accounts off old addresses before anything lapses.
  5. Redirect the keepers to matching pages.
  6. Let the rest lapse deliberately.
  7. Update the card and the contact address.

Step four is the one to finish before any domain is allowed to go. A lapsed name with a login still attached is not just a lost address; it is a way into the account.

Checking whose name each domain is in is covered in the domain registered in a former employee's name.

Frequently asked questions

Why do businesses end up with extra domains?

Campaign names, common misspellings, the other ending of the main name, an old business name after a rebrand, and names an agency registered.

What happens when a domain is not renewed?

Website and email stop within days. The owner can usually renew for a few weeks, then recover it at a higher fee; after that, anyone can register it.

Why does an old email domain matter?

Whoever registers it next can receive mail sent to it, including password resets for any account still using an old address. Move those accounts before the domain lapses.

Where do I find all our domains?

In every registrar account, in old invoices found by searching your email, in card statements, and in the hosting control panel and Search Console.

Which domains are worth keeping?

Any domain printed somewhere, linked from other sites, likely to be typed by customers, or ever used for email. A campaign name with no trace left can lapse.

What makes a domain redirect work properly?

A permanent redirect in one step to the matching page, working over both http and https with a certificate, and no masked forwarding hiding the main site in a frame.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Domains renewing that nobody can explain?

Send us your registrar list. We will tell you which to redirect, which to keep for email and which to let go.

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