Friday, November 23, 2012

Domain Name Registrar Maintenance

Our master domain name registrar will be migrating their services to a new data center late tonight, November 23rd. They have specified a 4 hour maintenance window beginning at 8pm PST, 5pm EST. All domains will continue to resolve as normal, and the only difference you'll notice during this brief time is you won't be able to make any domain name record changes, such as name, address, or DNS changes. You're probably too tired from all that shopping at 4am to do any work tonight, anyway. Am I right?

Monday, November 5, 2012

Domain Renewal Email Frequency Adjusted

Because your domain name is so critical to the continued functioning of your website and email, it's customary for all domain registrars to send repeated reminders of the upcoming renewal date, typically beginning at 60 days out and at intervals of every 15 days.

We have always adopted this industry standard, but also realize that the repeated emails can become rather annoying, and like those not-so-lovely and extremely repetitive TV commercials, after a while you may tune them out. At the same time, without enough notice, anything that only happens once a year (like your anniversary*) could slip your mind and catch you unaware (like being on vacation when your domain name renews). This would be very bad.

When the billing software we use had a major upgrade a couple of months ago, they added a new feature, yet another domain renewal reminder email, sent out on the 11th of each month. As I understand how it's supposed to work, those customers who have more than one domain name registered with us that expires within the next 30 days should be getting this email. Unfortunately, the email is both going out to every customer with a domain expiring that month; and there's no way to shut it off.

While trying to find a way to shut off this additional (and in my opinion, unneeded) email, the frequency at which domain renewal emails are sent was reviewed, and a new more sensible schedule has been adopted.

Domain renewal reminder emails will now be sent at 60 days and 30 days from the due date. Invoices will continue to be generated and emailed 10 days prior to your due date. There may still be a 3rd reminder email sent to you, on the 11th of the month. We apologize in advance for that, and if we can find a way to stop that email, we will.

Please remember that your domain expires ON the morning of the "expiration date." Do not wait until THAT DAY to renew your domain!

All domain due dates are set to the day before the expiration day for this reason.

For any questions about our domain name registration and renewal policies, please see our Domain Name Registration FAQs.

* Perhaps emailed reminders, every 15 days for 2 months, might work for anniversaries and birthdays?