Renewing an expired domain purchased through your store admin
A domain purchased from your store admin is renewed automatically every year with the same payment method you used to buy it. Auto-renewal ensures that your domain ownership doesn't expire and your site will open via your custom URL.
In case any error occurs during the renewal, you have a grace period to manually renew your web address, so your Instant Site continues to open on your custom URL.
What happens if a domain auto-renewal fails
When a payment for a renewal fails:
- Your domain becomes expired. This means that when someone tries to open your custom URL to reach your site, your Instant Site won’t open.
- You have approximately 40 days to reactivate your domain from your store admin. If you don’t renew your domain after the grace period, your domain will be deleted from the registry.
- Deleting from the registry means you no longer own that domain name, and it becomes available for anyone to purchase.
- Your Instant Site will still be available on a built-in free subdomain. In case you purchased more than one domain from your online store, your Instant Site automatically connects to another non-expired active domain. When you have several active domains, the one that you bought first is connected.
Renewing an expired domain purchased from your store admin
To manually renew a domain from your store admin:
- From your store admin, go to Websites.
- Click Renew Domain.
- Enter a payment method and click Pay for Renewal.
That’s it. After successful payment, your domain will be up and running.
Preventing problems with domain expiration
Problems with renewing your domain may occur in case your card has expired, or you have insufficient funds.
To make sure your site is always available for customers via the preferred domain:
- Check that you have enough funds on your card or PayPal account that you used to pay for the domain.
- If you know that your card expires soon, issue a new card. Typically, the card issuer will send you a replacement card before your old card expires. All you have to do is activate it.
You can see the domain price and the next billing date on the Domain page in your store admin.