If you are keen to learn how to buy expired domains, then perhaps it is a wise move to understand how they expire and what the processes involved are. A domain does not just expire when it says it does, what actually happens is it goes into “expired status” for a period of forty days, during which the domain owner still has the right to renew it for the standard fee. This known as a “grace” period However once the domain has entered this phase, you can be pretty certain that it may not be renewed.

From the forty days “expired status” phase the domain then changes status and enters a “redemption period” This means it will cost the domain owner a fee for re-activation which is generally around $100. At this point in time you can be pretty sure the domain owner does not want to renew. After the “redemption period” comes “locked status” which lasts around five days while the domain is deleted, and the entire process of all three phases takes about seventy five days. Only after the completion of all three phases will the domain name be available for registration by a new owner.

To land your domain name and get in at the drop (the three hour period during which the domain name is deleted from the VeriSign database) you have to register your domain manually during the drop period. This is to ensure that no-one else who has backordered the domain name from other services gets it. This three hour period is unpredictable, and there are three major services which specialize in getting in on the drop period on VeriSigns servers.

This generally means that they have far more resources available than you do, so it is a good idea to enlist the services of these guys. The services are Pool.com, Snapnames.com and Enom.com. They employ the use of registrars which access the VeriSign servers at regular intervals, however not regularly enough to be banned If you use their services and you get the domain name you wanted you pay.