I've worked in the hosting business for several years and often times I come across domain whois records that list the expiry date as 1 year in advance of the actual expiry date. I personally never understood why this occurs. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there any particular reason why it happens?

Example: domain actually expires on 1/1/2007 but whois record shows 1/1/2008

As far as I know, the expiration date returned in the whois record should always be correct (although it doesn't include the standard grace period before the domain is released of course). Can you provide an example of a domain where it's inaccurate?

Personally I think it's more likely that the owners had registered it for 2 years instead of 1 without realising, or taken some action which had extended the registration for another year such as paying to transfer it to another registrar.

As far as I know, the expiration date returned in the whois record should always be correct (although it doesn't include the standard grace period before the domain is released of course). Can you provide an example of a domain where it's inaccurate?

Personally I think it's more likely that the owners had registered it for 2 years instead of 1 without realising, or taken some action which had extended the registration for another year such as paying to transfer it to another registrar.

Actually, I did a little searching and was able to locate the answer in eNom's FAQS:

"When a domain expires, the registrar is billed for the renewal of that domain. This allows the registrar to retain the domain in case it was an unintentional expiration. This also allows the previous owner to have time to renew the domain during the grace period.

Even though there is a future date on the domain, the name is expired as far as you (the previous registrant) are concerned because you haven't actually paid for that renewal. Technically you are no longer the owner; the domain will become inactive, your website is replaced with a parking page, and all services are disabled (such as email).

Therefore, if the whois record indicates it has expired, and shows the "previous registrant' information, this means the registrant has not paid eNom for the renewal yet. It will still show next year's date, only because the registry has actually been paid for the renewal by the registrar.

Once you pay us to renew the domain, it will be added back to your active list of domains, and it will no longer show as expired. Once an expired domains is renewed, it can take up to 48 hours to become active again. Please renew your domain before the actual expiration date to avoid unintentional expirations and down time."

The best way to know the REAL expiration date of a domain is to first go to InterNIC's site and do a WHOIS, which will tell you the name of the domain registrar, then go to that registrar's WHOIS tool, and it will give you an accurate expiration date.

What I've seen is when a domain has expired, you will see most sites reporting that it is not expired (you will see 1 year added). But if you query the actual registrar, it shows the correct (expired) date.

My experience anyway...

- Scott

Was the original question about .org domains by any chance?

A few months ago I tried to renew a couple of .org domains, but my registrar's web site (Dotregistrar) was playing up and I couldn't tell if the renewals had gone through.

I went and checked the Whois (which, for .org domains, is provided by the Registry - PIR - and not by individual registrars). It showed the domains as renewed.

Then, when the anniversary of registration came along, I received a deactivation notice from Dotregistrar! When I spoke to them they said that PIR "assume renewal unless they hear otherwise" and will show the renewal date as being one year in the future regardless of whether or not the domain has actually been renewed.

I don't know if this is true (I've been a lot of nonsense by Dotregistrar recently - they've really gone downhill!), but that's what I was told!

I was able to resurrect both domains without extra charge, BTW.