Horror stories from people who forgot to renew their top-level domain names (TLDs) abound online. And it’s not just the flighty or the too-busy-for-your-own-good types who let this important date pass them by. The University of Queensland failed to renew their domain name in 2011, causing student and faculty email addresses to stop working, among other things. And sometimes, even famous people let their domain renewal go by unnoticed.
With better protection against spam these days, domain registrar reminders can end up in the spam folder, or be overlooked altogether. Miss out on renewing your domain name and you may have to jump through hoops (or even fork out an excessive amount of cash) just to get your domain back.
You can guarantee you’ll never miss another domain renewal by signing up with one of these free reminder services.
Miosota
Miosota is a free web service that does just one thing: it monitors your domain name and sends you an email when your domain is about to expire. Miosota promises to email you five days before your domain is set to be let go, and again one day before the domain's expiration date, if you haven't already settled up with your registrar. Users can sign up for free and unregister at any time.
IFTTT
IFTTT, short for if this then that, is a free website tool that will help you create a series of recipes to inform or remind you of a wide variety of things, including when your domain is scheduled to be released. Google Calendar users, for example, can enter their domain expiry date into their calendar, and then set up IFTTT to Urge-me.com is another web-based service that’s 100% free. Aimed at the extremely forgetful or busy person, Urge-Me will send an email reminder every month before your domain expires, then two weeks before, one week before, and finally, a few days before.
ReminderGuru
Experts at nudging you do anything and everything important, ReminderGuru will email, call or text you things you can't afford to forget. You can watch the demo of ReminderGuru from their website to see how it all works.
TelePixie
TelePixie provides a wide variety of call services, including free wake-up calls, free reminder calls, and even free daily weather forecasts. Sign-up is free and takes just moments.
Corkboard
Corkboard is a virtual corkboard that you can fill with important dates, reminders, photos, project details and just about anything else you regularly pin to your bulletin board or calendar at home. Corkboards can be shared with others or kept private. By signing up for the mobile and email reminders, you'll be notified by phone or email of when your domain is nearing its end date. Corkboard is available as a free web-based or iPhone app.
Of course, the easiest way to remember to renew your domain name is change the settings with your domain register. By setting auto-review on your most valuable domains, domain registration will take care of itself, billing you automatically. What’s simpler than that?