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Where to get domain name registration advice?
(sorry for the off-topic post, but I figure I can always rely on my fellow tanganites for sound advice)
A couple years ago, my wife bought/registered a domain name through WordPress. She forgot to renew it, and it recently expired (on Dec. 31st, I believe). She’d like it back, but they want a $100 fee. There are other options, but I am unsure what the right thing to do is. Also: I noticed that her domain name is currently being auctioned off on GoDaddy.com; there’s ~4 days left on the auction.
I searched for advice, but none was super helpful. I thought about posting a question on a WordPress forum or GoDaddy forum, but I think the results/answers would be skewed/biased based on feedback I’ve read in those places.
I’m not sure what the best plan of action is. Does anyone either know what I should do, or know of a good forum where I could get some quick & helpful feedback? (I’ll post some more details below)
More details:
A WordPress blog is free, but they offer (for $17/yr) a service in which they buy/register a domain name for you that you can then use for your WordPress blog. My wife bought this service, but she forgot to renew (pay); the domain registration is now 20+ days expired. I noticed that her domain is not for general sale, but that it can be bid for via GoDaddy auctions (0 bids so far; 4 days remaining).
WordPress says that these are her options:
1) Pay WordPress.com $97.00 to reactive the domain. This includes an annual subscription to the WordPress.com domain mapping and registration upgrades. We have no control over the additional cost as it is levied on us by our domain registrar.
2) Go to http://pool.com/ register there and place the domain on backorder. As soon as the name becomes available Pool will try to get it for you. The domain would cost a minimum of $60 from there.
3) Another alternative is to just wait, hope no one else buys it and get it again for $17.00.
I would prefer my wife buy/register her domain name through namecheap, or the like -- while there are advantages to buying the domain name via WordPress (it's idiot proof), it seems limiting and silly to me. If you register a domain via somewhere else (e.g. namecheap), you can pay WordPress $12/yr to continue hosting your site and to domain map to your own registered domain name -- we would pay for this $12 service.
Here is my question: should I bid on the GoDaddy auction? Or should I let the auction expire? (The name is not worth $100 to us ... maybe $50, lol). Even though there are only 4 days left on the auction, I believe that the domain name won't be released for general public sale (e.g. available via namecheap) for about 50 days from now. We'd like to secure the domain name, and I would be willing to pay GoDaddy an extra $10 to secure it ... but, from what I've read, it seems like this is possibly a bad idea.
Any thoughts or suggestions for where I should look for help?
Who is the domain registrar? Unless it a wordpress ripoff assistant, you have 30 days from expiration to re-register at the normal price for another year(s). Unless the name is microsoftsucks.com I seriously doubt anyone is waiting to pounce on it. I have many domains (my registrar sends me 90 - 60 - 30 -15 day notices to renew) and I have allowed some to expire only to decide I want to re-register a month or two later. The going rate for a domain name these days is between $6 and $9 a year with many deals to get them cheaper or free if you use other services. I own all of my domains outright, even the ones I maintain for other people and have domain forwarding or hosting directed to my domain address.