Halfords.com is currently offline, and Halfords.co.uk is redirecting to Halfords.com. They forgot to renew their domain, and are now having to work hard with the domain registrar to get it back.
How can you avoid losing your own domain? Several ways:
- Use a registrar that auto-renews domains
- Make sure auto-renew is switched on
- Make sure your payment details are kept up to date
- READ YOUR EMAILS – anything from your registrar or web host should be considered TOP PRIORITY.
It really is shocking that such a well known brand has managed to lose its domain name. The person in charge of maintaining the domains must be sweating right now.
The most likely explanation I can think of is that one person was responsible for managing the domain, they used their own personal halfords.com (or similar) address to manage the domain, and they left.
This meant that requests to update payment details or contact details were ignored as the email address was no longer monitored.
How else can you avoid losing your domains? Firstly, do a “stock take”. If you own many domains, keep a spreadsheet with all your domains on, with the registrar, the email address associated with that account, the expiry date and details of the payment options used. If you use a debit card remember that they expire. A registrar will remind you (or should) but if you ignore the emails, there is little they can do.