GoDaddy domain name auto renewal: what is it, how does it work…

By now, we all know this: the journey into building a website starts with a domain name. Especially if you’re a business, you’ll want to get a mybusinessname.com type of domain. In addition, if you don’t want businesses with a similar name building online identities in your business’s name, we always suggest you also get variations of the domain as well i.e. mybusinessname.net and mybusinessname.co. Here is another thing you need to remember: the amount of time you can sit back and say, “yay; I got the domain I wanted” depends on how long you’ve paid to register it for. How, you ask?

Beware of the registration period while purchasing a domain name

Persons and companies usually go for a one or two year registration while registering their domain. Of course, this is your choice to make; however, you should also keep in mind that if you forget to renew your domain before it expires, someone else can purchase it and create a completely different website.

You’re probably using auto renewal for your phone and electric bills already. This way, your bills are always paid on time and you don’t have to deal with shortages. Your domain name and website are among your business’s valuable assets, and running into shortages might affect your business flow. This is why many service providers, including GoDaddy, give you the domain auto renewal option. But how does it work exactly? Let’s have a look…

Product renewal settings in the GoDaddy panel

First of all, you decide the registration period while you’re purchasing your domain, and it can be anywhere between one to ten years. If you’ve purchased a domain from GoDaddy, you get two choices for product renewals: 1) Automatic renewal and 2) Manual renewal. When you do make a purchase from GoDaddy, the auto renewal option is automatically selected. If you want to make changes, first log into your GoDaddy account:

You will see a list of products you have on your GoDaddy account. Click the green arrow on the top left of the “Domains” tab, which will let you view all your domains.

Choose the domain name you want to make changes to and click “Manage.”

At the next step, you’ll be able to view the necessary information in relation to your domain name:

If you want to select the automatic renewal option, you don’t have to do anything after this step. However, if you want to switch to manual renewal, go to “My Renewals” on the top right, from the drop-down menu under the name that shows up on your account.

Select the domain name or other products that you want to make changes to. And then by using the buttons on the top right, make your changes.

And you’re all done!

Is domain auto renewal enough?

Due to the reasons we’ve mentioned above, many users prefer auto domain renewals. It’s also important to keep in mind that opting for auto renewal for your domain isn’t enough by itself when it comes to protecting it. Before we end our article, let us make a few reminders:

We do notify you by email when the time for auto renewal is getting close. And we also contact you via email when there’s a problem with your payment method we have on file. Having said that, here is another reminder:

Conclusion

At GoDaddy, we don’t charge our customers without their approval. If it looks like “you’ve been charged without notice,” this might be because you have auto renewals on. Don’t forget; auto renewal isn’t available only for domains, but for our other products as well. If you’ve selected auto renewal, your payment is processed and your products are updated automatically before their expiration date.

Easiest way to stop your domain and other products from expiring so you don’t lose your domain or have to face outages related to your website is to opt-in for auto renewals.

The choice is yours to make. If manual renewals are a better choice for you, you can change your settings accordingly by taking the steps we’ve explained above.