Important: Register Your domain for 10 years!

[DeluxeNames]

One of the saddest things to happen to an up and coming site or business is when the owner gets so busy and successful that they forget to renew their domain! There's no bigger crushing feeling than when someone else grabs your expiring domain and reaps all of the rewards of your years of hard work.

It's happened to many people in this business and I'm sure some of you might even have horror stories about this (please share).

My encouragement for you: Stop what your doing right this second and take 5 minutes. Ask yourself, what are my 3 best sites? Register those 3 best site domains for 10 years. Now ask yourself, what are my 3 favorite domains for future development? Register those 3 for at least 5 years.

Believe me, you won't be sorry you did. I did this and it gives me peace of mind and lets me sleep better at night.

[Nuvo]

Basically, this is auto renewal or domain renewal.
Basically, you're paying for a number of years at once and your registrar is making sure they can renew the domain every year until your service time ends.
Sites like Simply (Namesco) offer this sort of service for up to 8 years on a number of extensions at varying prices (obviously, .com, .net and such are more costly than .me.uk and other lesser extensions... .tv is the most costly at £159.99 for 8 years, which is more than £50 more than a .com for that time frame).

[DeluxeNames]

Basically, this is auto renewal or domain renewal.

It's the second one you mentioned: domain renewal.

Auto renewal is similar but that's where you authorize your registrar to go ahead and renew your domain and charge your credit card for that renewal fee automatically when the domain comes up for renewal again (which could be a year from now). This is better than nothing but there is a danger to this: what if you credit card they have on file is no longer valid a year from now when they try to process your Auto Renewal? (For example maybe that card will be expired by then or it's been canceled and your now using a different card)

Besides Auto Renewal, there is an option at most Registrars to renew your domain for as many as 10 years. You will pay now and your domain will be guaranteed to be renewed for those 10 years.

Login to your domain's registrar and go to your domain admin area. Look for something that says "Renew your domain" or "Add Years" and choose this option.

[Nuvo]

Pre-paid renewal also has it's pitfalls.
There's nothing to say that your site won't go down within the timeframe you choose, and there's nothing to say that you won't fall foul of other site damaging events such as ISP implosion, hacking, imprisonment or death (Ok, those two are a bit drastic).
If the site goes down for any reason, there's nothing to say that the domains will sell for anything near the kind of money you put into keeping them available.

At least with auto renewal, you have the advantage of being able to cancel the renewal easily as it only takes place once a year (a domain is normally registered for a period of 12 months before becoming available for renewal or purchase).
If you've paid for the renewals for 10 years all at once, you're risking the possible loss of a fair bit of cash, but with auto renewal, you stand to lose the massive sum of what, $10 - $20 at most on the average domain.

While it's true that you could end up with it charged to an inactive credit card or similar, this shouldn't be an issue if you have the funds to keep the site going and remember that you actually have a site in the first place.
It would also be possible to set up payments from a bank account such as one which offers Visa services.
People change their bank accounts much less than their credit card accounts as some people like to port their debts to other credit cards which offer 0% on ballance transfers for any length of time (meaning that as long as you don't actually use the card, you only have to pay back what you've used, not the charges associated with any outstanding ballance).
I'd much rather set up payments through my bank rather than through Barklaycard or similar as I don't want my credit card details being flogged on the Asian black market by those annoyingly hard to understand call center staff (no offence Daniel, but there's a reason why local call centers are more popular and why I use a bank that uses them).

By the way, did you know that the cost of running a website has fallen by something like 90% in the last 10 years as server systems improve, computer hardware gets more capable and data connections get faster?

[DeluxeNames]

By the way, did you know that the cost of running a website has fallen by something like 90% in the last 10 years as server systems improve, computer hardware gets more capable and data connections get faster?

Thank God for that! I have a feeling these cheaper prices were the reason a lot of us were able to give the web a go

[fiona2412]

If it hadn't have been for "cheap" hosting I would still be in MSN groups, or bugging the hell outta moddy to host me cheaply lol

[lionsgate]

I think that too much. When I am with any project i register it for maximum of 5 years. And for others I register from 2 years. For 10 years.. haven't registered atonce yet. It is costly in a way.

[Darren]

Nuvo...Bryant...The glass ids half FULL!!!!
and thanks for making it so I don't sleep tonight Bryant!