I recieved an email from Squarespace saying my domain is not going to renew.

Who is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a domain-name registrar. As a registrar, they are responsible for being a ‘record keeper’ of information for any domain-name that is registered through them, or in this case, transferred to them from Google…

What happened?

You may have received an email from Squarespace indicating that your domain name will not renew. This was sent out by their automated system due to automatic-renewal being disabled by our team.

Background

A little over a year ago, Google (or Alphabet, or whatever they want to call themselves now) decided that being a registrar was too much of a pain-in-the-ass for the money, and sold its registrar division to Squarespace. For over a year, domain-name managers were being notified by Google that at some point, Squarespace was going to take ownership and that all domain records would be transferred. This transfer was made to sound imminent, but as the months went by, we were just constantly told that ‘Squarespace is our new registrar and to expect our records to be transferred soon.’

Then, finally, about three months ago, Squarespace began migrations of our domain records… two, maybe three at a time per month. It was a slow, slow, process.

Then recently, they began processing larger batches and within the last few weeks, completed the migration process for our records. However, we opened a support ticket with them regarding some issues from the transfer and we have yet to hear from them. Supposedly, according to them, they have outstanding customer service. Under the circumstances, we have elected to transfer our domain records to another registrar.

What does this mean to you?

Absolutely nothing. Your domain will be renewed, but most likely during a transfer process that we will initiate on our end. No action is required from you and this activity will have no affect on your services.

We were not happy about the fact that the registrar decided to send those warnings to every contact listed on the domain name, since technically, it should have only gone to the administrative and technical contacts.

As part of our day-to-day operations, we consistently evaluate our vendors and when appropriate, make necessary migrations. Many times, this can occur without our customers knowledge as the underlying changes are transparent and unnoticed.

By making these behind-the-scenes changes, allows us to ensure that there are no ‘bottle-necks’ in the chain of service to you, our customer and that our service quality remains intact.

So, is my domain name safe?

Yes, your domain-name is safe and will continue to automatically renew unless you request otherwise. RavenTech will always automatically renew its customer’s domains if we registered them and are managing them on behalf of our customers. All domains are automatically renewed for 1-year terms (which is the minimum permitted). Customers may request longer registration terms if they wish.