Tips for Domain Name Management?

Expired domain names = downtime for websites. Downtime = bad.

How does your organization make sure domain names have been renewed? I believe ICANN requires registrars to give a notice at 60 days and 30 days, but these can easily get ignored -- especially with a large amount of domains.

Does your solution work for a large amount of domain names? (> 100) Is it registrar specific?

When we register a domain, we put a recurring task in our ticketing system with annual recurrence, assigned to the person who handles the renewals, scheduled so it hits a month before the next cycle. No reliance on external tracking or emails; that doesn't seem to work out well.

Several thoughts ... we have the same dilemma!

1- Make it a regular part of someone's job to check the registrar once a month and renew (or choose not to renew) any domains expiring in the next 60 or 90 days.

2- Keep your own records (we use a list on SharePoint) rather then relying on the registrar.

3- Consolidate onto a single registrar. This will make the review and renewal process easier.

A couple of kludges will reduce (but not eliminate) the incidence of expirations.

a- Reserve key domains for a long time. Network Solutions will let you do it for 100 years!

b- Setup auto-renew for key domains, if it is available on your registrar. Then you just need to check (quarterly?) that the credit card has not expired.

Through ticket software, Sharepoint, whatever - add a task to the IT group's Outlook, so that employee churn isn't an issue. With a lead time of at least a month (to account for accounts payable lag).

After a few catastrophic failures in the registration/renewal process we have finally convinced our userbase that the correct way to get a new domain name is to go through IT. Therefore we have them all managed by one person, who keeps a documented list of the domain name, the department or individual who requested it, date requested, IP it is using, and expriation date.

Monthly we check the list and renew all the ones due in the next month. It works great, and it allows us to check with the people who requested them about if they are still using them or not.

We do four things:

• Register all domains with one registrar (also get SSL certs from them).
• Pay for multiple years at once.
• Synchronize renewal dates as much as possible.
• Log in and check our account with the registrar every couple of months.

And there's one overarching thing we do to keep domain registrations under control: deal with a registrar who charges a bit more but has real, helpful people working for them and able to help us.

We got connected to the Internet back before the boom when the "registrar" for Canada was one guy who worked at the University of British Columbia. When registration became a big business, Webnames.ca was set up at the University and took over as the original registrar for Canada. So we've dealt with them from the beginning and even for a small number of domains were assigned a rep who we could call for any unusual requests or emergencies.