My first blog entry after I started my website was Lessons Learned in Web Hosting Provider Selection . Looks like I am still learning lessons. You would hope (mistake - 1) that your web hosting provider would remind you when it's time to renew your domain and website registration. Well, I was reminded by my provider BUT on the day when my domain and my account were due to expire - A big 1 year anniversary surprise! I made the payment right away and assumed everything was taken care of (mistake 2). Just an hour ago, I realized my website was down, I saw a weird page when I went to the website. It was some search page with a link "why am I seeing this?"

When I had started my website, my provider provided ONLY web support, which would require me to open a trouble ticket using their website and/or participate in the discussion forum. I had (and I still don't have) 24x7 phone support (sort of mistake - 3).

The problem was that my domain had expired because even though the payment was received and approved, they had some "difficulty" renewing the domain. Fortunately, my provider now provides 24x7 chat support and surprisingly, some one was available to help. He worked on my problem right away and made the website available. Why wasn't I sent payment reminder email early enough? I don't know. Hopefully, the rep I spoke to will "look into it."

The lesson learned? It's hard to remember to pay your website bill since it's a yearly thing. But, do remember it. Make it an outlook reminder, make it a yahoo reminder, setup a yearly bill payment (if you bank offers it), register a credit card with your provider but don't rely on your provider to remind you. If your website goes down, you may loose business. Worse yet if your domain expires and becomes available, some one might take it.

Here is an amendment to my first blog entry . Before you sign up, ask your provider how do they renew the account? Automatically or do you have to do this manually? What happens if you fail to make the payment on time? Do you loose your domain and your content right away or do you have grace period?