Shouldn't be anything to worry about - here’s how the domain expiry process works.
1. Domain ‘expires’, and enters a 40 day grace period. I have read things that imply this can vary from registrar to registrar, but it seems pretty standard from what I have seen.
2. After the grace period, it enters a 30 day redemption period. Again, apparently this can vary, but I have yet to see it (admittedly I have only looked at a small number of domains)
3. Finally, when the redemption period expires, a 5 day ‘pending deletion’ period is entered.
Between 11am and 2pm Pacific Time on the 6th day of pending deletion, the registrars theoretically start dropping the names from the ICANN database.
It is kind of odd that such a domain would only be renewed annually... it's hardly speculative!
Grace period (as you have pointed out somewhat) varies by registrar. The basis for what you are saying is how long a registrar has to delete the domain before they can get their money refunded. That time period is 45 days. So on the expiration date the registrar is automatically charged for the renewal. If they delete on day 45 (by a certain time depending on when registered) they will have their fee refunded. Consequently they can give a grace period if they want of up to 45 days but from a practical standpoint it's tricky to wait until the last minute before deleting (if you have a system problem on day 44 that prevents you from deleting 2000 names you're stuck with them).
After they delete the domain (which can theoretically be anytime and keep in mind that "delete" is different than "take off line" "change ownership" etc.) it goes into redemption.
It is in redemption for 30 days during which only the sponsoring registrar can submit the necessary report to get the domain back. With .com .net .org .info the cost for the registrar to get the name out of redemption is $40 plus the renewal fee.
Once 30 days have past it is in pending delete and goes into a 5 day black hole where nothing happens and not even the sponsoring registrar can get it back. After that 5 day period it's released and anyone can grab it, first come first serve.
nodejs.org as I pointed out elsewhere was simply taken offline. It wasn't "deleted" in the sense that it goes into redemption. From the registrars point of view this makes sense since it allows them (if they want) to charge a fee to restore the domain w/o having to incur any extra ($40) costs.
"the registrars theoretically start dropping the names"
The time the domains drop is not controlled by registrars. It's controlled by the registries. The registrars only control (in addition to other things pointed out) when the domain goes offline or gets "deleted" and enters redemption.
" it enters a 30 day redemption period. Again, apparently this can vary"
"here’s how the domain expiry process works." (might have been better to say "here's how I think").
"Domain ‘expires’, and enters a 40 day grace period" although you qualified this saying it like that gives people the wrong impression of your actual knowledge in this area.
"After the grace period, it enters a 30 day redemption period. Again, apparently this can vary, but I have yet to see it "
You say "it enters" (like a fact) but then say "it can vary, but I haven't seen it yet".
My point isn't to give you a hard time but on HN crowd tends to jump on anything incorrect and it's clear from your summary that you don't have much experience in this area. I've made mistakes when I've said things on HN that I haven't doubled checked or don't know very well. (It's possible of course to even make mistakes on things you know well!)
What you say is correct. I'll chip in a bit on "registrar to registrar". In case of Namecheap,renewing a expired domain is just like renewing a regular domain. While other registrars charge re-activation fee, Namecheap has no additional fees. So, Ryan can just renew the domain instantly whenever this comes into his attention.
In this particular case namecheap is merely a reseller for enom.
Important to point out here that namecheap which is much touted on HN as being so great to deal with is the organization that made the decision to take this domain offline - not enom.com the registrar.
When people fail to respond to expiration notices, taking the domain offline on the expiration date seems like a good way to bring it to their attention.
Off the top I wonder if an idea might be to do the following, keeping in mind that the registrar would charge extra but ultimately it would be to the registrants benefit and less disruptive if the normal ways (that have no cost) were interupted:
- Send postal notice (some do this already)
- Send express or certified letter (charging up front to be notified this way)
- Make phone call
- Send email to any contact addresses on the website
I would like to point out also that this is a reason also why "privacy" on whois is a bad idea in some cases. In this case it is fairly easy for a third party to get in touch with the joyent contact (someone might know him or have an alternative means of contacting him - even by phone if not the whois phone number). If contact info is protected by privacy that becomes a different issue (you would have to have more specific knowledge).
1. Domain ‘expires’, and enters a 40 day grace period. I have read things that imply this can vary from registrar to registrar, but it seems pretty standard from what I have seen.
2. After the grace period, it enters a 30 day redemption period. Again, apparently this can vary, but I have yet to see it (admittedly I have only looked at a small number of domains)
3. Finally, when the redemption period expires, a 5 day ‘pending deletion’ period is entered.
Between 11am and 2pm Pacific Time on the 6th day of pending deletion, the registrars theoretically start dropping the names from the ICANN database.
It is kind of odd that such a domain would only be renewed annually... it's hardly speculative!