It is devastating when someone forgets to renew their domain and then it becomes available for anyone else to register. With .com.au, .net.au and .au domains you only have 30 days to renew your domain after it expires, so this is not a long time unlike with .com domains you have 45 days of expiry, followed by an extra 30 days of redemption which costs more to restore usually US$100.
Our recommendation is to always renew your domain names early and if the domain is valuable, make sure you have have auto renew on! Some also feel that renewing for a multi year period like 5 years for the added peace of mind is wise, just make sure you keep your credit card details on file up to date as they will surely expire in the 5 year period, so great for the 5 years but comes with other risks.
Unfortunately there are a few clients that are constantly risking extremely valuable domain names by maxing out the day that they renew a domain in the expiry period. Some clients seem to do this on purpose and is part of their renewal strategies. For those that do this constantly run the risk of missing renewals of key domain names.
However if you failed to renew your domain on time and or the domain was put into policy detail due to eligibility reasons and you need a Drop Catcher service, this is the only one that you can rely on. Do not bother with normal domain backorder services, these do not catch expired domains that are contested or domains that have potential SEO value with backlinks or have potential traffic going to the domain that can be legally monetized by a domain portfolio owner.
We have received many reports of prior owners getting spam emails from a domain recovery company that allegedly has staff in the US and operating out of Netherlands, which they feel gives them the green light to spam anyone they want with an scam offer to make you pay for a service that in most cases will not deliver any results. So save you $ when you get such an email asking you to pay $125 just for some international scammer to “try” to catch a domain for you when they know they can not. We know that they do not use Drop.com.au for their services, we are not sure why. They use the other Drop Catcher that is not an accredited registrar but just a reseller. Makes you wonder that the people behind the other Drop Catcher are the same people behind sending out these spam and scam emails to recover your expired domains. Bigger story developing…
Even if they do catch a domain, you are overpaying as going direct with Drop.com.au is far cheaper and requires no technical experience. Drop pricing is very simple:
Once off activation fee $29.95 inc GST
Domain auction cost starts at $25 with a Dutch Auction that goes down to $10 to catch an expired domain using the Drop technology that is just not beaten by anyone else!
For $39.95 to $54.95 inc GST for uncontested domains is all it takes. Important to note is that if your domain happens to be generic, expect someone else to also want it, and bid higher than the starting $25 bid.
