Domain safety check for domains you own

Custody risk is everything that can separate you from domains you already own: an expiry you never hear about, a registrar account locked behind an inbox on the domain itself, a certificate that lapses silently, or WHOIS contact details you no longer control. Finding domains is easy — keeping them is where people get hurt.

Your registrar account email is the master key: password resets, transfer approvals and verification demands all go there. If that email runs on a domain inside the same account and the domain expires or the account is locked, you cannot receive the very messages you need to recover — a documented trap that has disabled entire portfolios, including the domain the owner's own email ran on.

Run it whenever you register, transfer or renew a domain, and give your whole portfolio a pass every few months. Expiry dates, certificates and privacy settings change silently — a quarterly check catches them while the fixes are still cheap.

No. Checks run on demand against live WHOIS and SSL data, and results are processed in memory — your domain list is never stored, and your email is only compared by domain during the check, never saved. If you want ongoing monitoring with saved alerts, use My Domains or the Domain Health Monitor watchlist instead.

Fix the registrar-account email first if it depends on a domain managed in the same account, because that trap can block every other recovery step. Next, deal with the nearest expiry and any certificate approaching its renewal date. Then correct WHOIS privacy, registrar lock and contact problems. The safest order is the one that restores control before an avoidable deadline creates an emergency.

Registrar lock is a status that helps prevent unauthorized transfers and, depending on the registry, certain high-risk changes. It does not stop a domain from expiring, and it does not replace strong account security. Keep it enabled for important domains, but learn how to unlock the name before a legitimate transfer so a planned move is not delayed at the last moment.

Auto-renewal is valuable, but it should not be your only safeguard. A card can expire, a payment can fail, or the registrar account itself can become inaccessible. Pair auto-renewal with a current backup payment method, renewal reminders well before expiry, and periodic custody checks. For a business-critical domain, renewing for multiple years can further reduce deadline risk.