Domain expired, GoDaddy holds it and is asking more money

Question

After expiring my domain, GoDaddy is asking more money to renew. Why is GoDaddy holding my domain? If it expired it has to be open to buy right?

Answer 1

In gTLD world, such as .COM it goes around like that:

• when a domain hits its expiration date, the registry auto-renews it
• this opens a 45 days period where the registrar can decide either to do nothing (then the domain gets really renewed past the 45 days delay, which means the registrar has been payed by its client to renew it), or delete the domain name (because the client decided not to renew it)
• when a domain name is deleted it is not immediately available again (except if it was deleted in a 5 days period after its creation, which is not our case here), it goes into a "redemption period"
• this was created to be able to undo unwanted deletion
• hence registrar, upon order from their client, can restore the domain name to put it back out of the redemption and working again
• but because this is an extreme last measure actions, registry put a specific price on the restore operation that it far more than a standard create/renew/transfer, and of course this fee is also pushed by the registrar to its client

You can visualize all of this on this ICANN diagram:

Depending on when the registrar decides to delete it, you may have to wait up to 45+30+5=80 days before the domain name becomes available to register by anyone (first come first served). But if you value your domain it is a bad idea to go this route for at least 2 reasons:

1. at some point during the delay above your domain may stop to work correctly as not resolving anymore; this can surely impact your operations
2. once really fully deleted and available to anyone you have absolutely no guarantee to be the first to get it, hence you may loose it definitively once for all.

If you have a problem with you current registrar you should still renew the domain (as it is far too late now) properly, then wait typically 60 days, then do the transfer to any other registrar to your liking. Absolutely wait 60 days between renewal and transfer otherwise you will pay twice but your domain will be extended only by one year for reasons too long to explain here.

But based on your whois output, the domain seems to have been already really renewed by the registrar, because otherwise it would have been in the "autoRenewPeriod", see https://icann.org/epp. So you do not seem to be anymore in the above case of expiration handling.

Except that your registrar whois shows:

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2019-03-17T07:29:51Z

(which is different from registry expiration date for the reasons given above) which is contradictory. You may need to contact it directly to clear out the situation.

Why godaddy holding my domain ? If it expired it has to be open to buy right?

Did you read the contract between you and GoDaddy precisely? Your rights on the domain may as well have ended as soon as the expiration was hit. Which, as explained above, does not mean it becomes immediately available again for registration.

Answer 2

Short Answer:

Find GoDaddy Expired Domain Renewal Cycle Here: https://in.godaddy.com/help/renewing-my-expired-domain-name-609

NEVER POST SUCH SENSITIVE DOMAIN INFORMATION IN PUBLIC.

As, you are already in Redemption Period, Easiest way according to me is Buy Domain from Go Daddy Expired Domain Auction.

You will get your domain for a cheaper rate than the Redemption Fees. And if possible remove this domain info ASAP from public attention.

They will not hold your domain for long, if they failed to sell it in Auction then they will release it as per the Lifecycle.

PRO TIP: Use "Buy Now" option at Auction / Bid at very last day / hour / minutes before Auction expiry to avoid unnecessary attention.