Encyclopedic definitions of technical terms related to .fr domain name expiry and re-registration.
Drop-catching
Drop-catching refers to re-registering a domain name at the exact moment it becomes available again from the registry, after expiry and passing through the grace and redemption phases. The term applies to all extensions, but each registry sets its own rules. For .fr, AFNIC defines the deletion schedule and the moment of public reopening. Drop-catching is a legal activity as long as registry rules and trademark law are respected. It differs from a classic transfer between holders (where the name is never released) and from secondary-market purchase via private marketplaces.
Expired domain name
An expired domain name is one whose validity at the registry has not been renewed by its holder at the annual (or multi-year) deadline. On the expiry date the domain does not disappear immediately: it enters a sequence of administrative phases defined by the registry. For a .fr, AFNIC notifies the holder before the deadline, then triggers a post-expiry grace period followed by a redemption period during which the holder can still recover the name. At the end of these phases, if no renewal occurs, the domain is permanently removed from the registry and becomes available for public registration again.
AFNIC (.fr registry)
AFNIC (Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération) is the body appointed by the French state to manage the .fr registry and several other extensions of the French zone (.re, .pm, .tf, .wf, .yt). A non-profit association founded in 1997 and based in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, AFNIC maintains the database of registered names, sets eligibility and lifecycle rules, and accredits registrars. It does not sell domains directly to the public: holders always go through an accredited registrar. AFNIC publishes the .fr Naming Charter, which formalises the expiry and deletion phases among other things.
Registrar (bureau d'enregistrement)
A registrar (bureau d'enregistrement) is a company accredited by a registry to register and manage domain names on behalf of holders. For .fr, AFNIC accredits several hundred registrars: they are the technical and commercial intermediary between the holder and the registry. The registrar submits EPP operations (create, renew, delete, transfer) to the registry, handles billing, and provides DNS tools and WHOIS contacts. A holder can transfer their domain from one registrar to another using an authorisation code (EPP code). Registrars do not all offer the same prices or the same services.
Redemption period
The redemption period is an administrative window during which an expired domain name remains recoverable by its former holder against a restore fee set by the registry, but can no longer be registered by a third party. For .fr, it follows the post-expiry grace phase. During redemption, the domain is frozen: DNS usually no longer resolves, WHOIS shows a specific status, and the registrar can offer the holder a restore procedure. This period prevents a domain from being lost over a simple administrative oversight. Its duration and terms are set by each registry.
Grace period (post-expiry)
The post-expiry grace period is the phase that immediately follows the expiration date of a domain name that has not been renewed. During this window the domain remains active and the holder can still renew it at the normal price, with no restore fee. For .fr, AFNIC sets the duration of this grace in the Naming Charter. It protects holders from sudden deletion caused by a payment issue, an expired credit card or simple forgetfulness. At the end of grace, if no renewal has been recorded, the domain moves into redemption before final deletion. Grace differs from redemption in pricing and in the fact that services usually stay online.
Snapback / immediate re-registration
Snapback refers to re-registering a domain name immediately after the registry releases it, i.e. within the smallest possible window after the name becomes public again. The term is used both as a common synonym for drop-catching and as a specific category in the process: the capture operation itself, as opposed to the backorder, which is the commercial pre-reservation step. Snapback depends on the lifecycle defined by the registry: as long as the redemption phase is not over, no snapback is possible. Once the name is officially deleted, it becomes registrable according to the registry's public rules.
Backorder
A backorder is an order placed with a provider to attempt to re-register a specific domain name when it is deleted in the future. The backorder is a commercial agreement between the client and the provider: the client reserves a place in the queue, and the provider attempts to acquire the name as soon as it becomes registrable. A backorder gives no guarantee of acquisition: if several providers target the same name, the one that succeeds in the capture wins the registration. Depending on the service, the backorder is billed at order time, at reservation, or only on successful capture. A backorder has no legal effect on the registry.
EPP code (authorisation code)
The EPP code, also called authorisation code or auth-info, is a secret string attached to a domain name and used by the EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol). This code proves, during a transfer of the domain between two registrars, that the operation is authorised by the holder. For .fr as for most extensions, the holder obtains this code from the current registrar and passes it to the new registrar to finalise the transfer. The code is temporary or revocable depending on implementation, and its secrecy is essential: disclosure makes an unsolicited transfer possible. The EPP code is technically defined by the RFCs of the EPP protocol and used by every modern registry.
Premium domain
A premium domain is a domain name considered more valuable than a standard one, due to a combination of criteria: short length, dictionary word, highly searched commercial term, generic brand, age, linguistic popularity. The notion is more marketing than legal: no registry has an official definition of a premium domain. Some registries do flag certain names at a high registration price to signal their value; for .fr, AFNIC does not apply premium pricing at the registry level. On the secondary market, premium domains often resell at much more than the registration cost; their value depends on possible commercial use and demand.
Lifecycle of a .fr domain
The lifecycle of a .fr domain name follows a schedule defined by AFNIC in its Naming Charter. In outline: around D-30, the holder receives a renewal notice; on D0, the official expiry date, the domain enters a grace period during which it remains active and renewable at the normal price; at the end of grace, it moves into redemption where it is no longer reachable but is still recoverable for a fee; around D+30, if nothing has been done, the domain is permanently removed from the registry and becomes registrable again by any eligible third party. This schedule can be adjusted by AFNIC; the exact durations are published in the Charter in force.
SYRELI
SYRELI (Système de Résolution de Litiges, dispute resolution system) is the alternative dispute-resolution procedure for domain names under extensions managed by AFNIC, introduced in 2011. It lets a third party who believes a domain name infringes their rights (trademark, trade name, personality rights) request a transfer or deletion decision from AFNIC without going through the courts. The procedure is fully online, paid, and conducted by a panel of independent jurors. SYRELI decisions are public and published on AFNIC's website. This procedure does not replace court action but offers a faster, less expensive route for clear-cut cases.
TLD (top-level domain)
A TLD (top-level domain) is the rightmost label of a domain name, after the last dot: .com, .org, .fr, .de, etc. TLDs are managed by IANA, a function operated by ICANN, which delegates each extension to a registry operator. They split into gTLDs (generic top-level domains such as .com, .org, .info), ccTLDs (two-letter country-code TLDs allocated under ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) and the new gTLDs introduced since 2012 (.tech, .shop, .blog, etc.). Each TLD has its own registry, eligibility rules, pricing and lifecycle.
ccTLD (country-code top-level domain)
A ccTLD (country-code top-level domain) is a two-letter top-level extension corresponding to a country or territory under ISO 3166-1 alpha-2: .fr for France, .de for Germany, .it for Italy, .es for Spain, .nl for the Netherlands, .uk for the United Kingdom. Each ccTLD is run by a designated national registry, which sets its own eligibility rules (residency, European presence, identification), pricing policy, expiry lifecycle and dispute-resolution procedures. ccTLDs are distinct from generic gTLDs such as .com and are subject to national legal frameworks.
DNS (Domain Name System)
The DNS (Domain Name System) is the global hierarchical system that translates a readable domain name (for example milodomain.com) into the IP address that machines use to communicate over the Internet. Specified by RFCs 1034 and 1035, DNS organises the namespace into zones served by authoritative name servers. For a .fr, root servers delegate the .fr zone to AFNIC, which in turn delegates each domain to its authoritative servers. Common DNS record types include A, AAAA, MX, TXT, NS, CNAME and CAA. When a domain expires or sits in redemption, its DNS records stop resolving normally.
Whois
Whois is a public protocol and service for querying domain-name registration databases, whose base specification is RFC 3912. A Whois query on a domain returns administrative information: registrar, creation, expiry and last-update dates, EPP statuses, DNS servers, and depending on the registry and on privacy rules, registrant data. For .fr, AFNIC operates an official Whois; personal data of natural-person registrants is masked under the GDPR, while legal-person registrants remain identifiable. Whois is gradually being replaced by RDAP, its structured successor.
Trust Flow (TF)
Trust Flow (TF) is a 0-100 score developed by the UK company Majestic that measures a domain's trust based on the quality of the sites linking to it. The indicator is computed iteratively from a seed set of reference sites considered trustworthy and propagates that score through the link graph. The higher the TF, the more a backlink profile points to reputable sources. It is often compared with Citation Flow (CF), which measures quantity instead, and the TF/CF ratio is used to estimate overall quality. TF is a proprietary metric; it is not used directly by Google.
Citation Flow (CF)
Citation Flow (CF) is a 0-100 score published by Majestic that measures the quantitative weight of inbound links pointing to a domain, independent of their quality. The more links a domain receives, the higher its CF, with no judgement on source reliability. CF complements Trust Flow: a site whose CF is much higher than its TF typically has a large number of links from low-reputation sources. Conversely, a high TF/CF ratio indicates a higher-quality link profile. Like TF, CF is a Majestic proprietary metric and is not an official Google signal.
Domain Authority (DA)
Domain Authority (DA) is a proprietary metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a domain can rank in Google's search results. Scored on a 1-100 logarithmic scale, it is computed from Moz's link index (Link Explorer), weighing referring-domain count, quality and other signals. DA is a comparative indicator: moving from 20 to 30 is far easier than from 70 to 80. It is not used by Google and should not be mistaken for an official ranking score, yet it remains a widely cited benchmark in SEO and domain valuation.
Domain Rating (DR)
Domain Rating (DR) is a proprietary Ahrefs metric that estimates the strength of a domain's backlink profile on a 0-100 logarithmic scale. DR is computed from the Ahrefs link index, accounting for the number of referring domains pointing to the site, the DR of each of those domains, and the dilution from outbound links. It serves as a benchmark for comparing the relative power of domains, in particular when valuing an expired domain or a secondary-market purchase. DR is not a signal used by Google and remains a third-party metric.
Backlink (inbound link)
A backlink, or inbound link, is a hyperlink placed on an external site that points to a page on another site. Backlinks are one of the oldest and most widely used signals search engines use to assess a domain's popularity and authority. Not all links carry equal weight: a link from a highly reputable site is worth more than one from an obscure site. A link's HTML rel attribute (for example rel=nofollow, rel=sponsored, rel=ugc) tells search engines how to treat it. When a domain expires and is acquired, the pre-existing backlinks usually remain in place and are often the primary source of the domain's value. See also: premium domain and Trust Flow.
Anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text of a hyperlink. It is one of the historical signals search engines use to understand the topic of the linked page. Anchors are classified into several categories: exact-match (the target keyword), partial, branded (the company name), naked (the URL itself) or generic (click here). A natural anchor distribution mixes these categories; conversely, systematic over-optimisation of exact-match anchors can trigger algorithmic penalties. For an expired domain, analysing the distribution of existing anchors reveals the perceived topic of the site before its expiry.
Domain name secondary market
The secondary market for domain names covers the set of transactions through which an already-registered domain name changes holder at a freely negotiated price, as opposed to the primary market where a name is created via a registrar. This market includes specialised marketplaces (Sedo, Dan, Afternic, Domraider, etc.), public auctions of expired or abandoned domains, private direct sales and specialised brokers. Transactions are completed by transfer via the EPP code. The secondary market is governed by general contract law and trademark law; it is distinct from the public-registration process for a free domain. See also: backorder, EPP code, and the page how Milodomain works.
National registry operator
A national registry operator is the body appointed by a state to maintain the authoritative database of a country-code extension (ccTLD) and delegate registration to accredited registrars. The major European national registries include AFNIC (.fr, plus .re, .pm, .tf, .wf, .yt), DENIC (.de), Nominet (.uk), SIDN (.nl), Registro.it operated by CNR-IIT (.it), Red.es (.es) and DNS Belgium (.be). Generic TLDs follow a different model: .com and .net are operated by Verisign under contract with ICANN. Each national registry sets its own eligibility rules, naming charter, pricing terms and expiry lifecycle, so practices for a .fr can differ significantly from those for a .de or a .nl. See also: AFNIC, ccTLD, and the about page.
Domain dispute resolution procedure
Each registry maintains its own out-of-court dispute resolution procedure for domain names. At the international level, ICANN imposes UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy) on most gTLDs, administered by centres such as WIPO or the NAF. National ccTLDs follow their own frameworks: AFNIC runs SYRELI for .fr (introduced 2011); DENIC offers a Dispute entry for .de; Nominet runs the DRS for .uk; SIDN administers a Geschillenregeling for .nl; Registro.it operates a reassignment procedure for .it; Red.es has its own procedure for .es. Each procedure has its own filing rules, costs, panels and remedies (transfer or cancellation), and they coexist with ordinary court action. See also: SYRELI and the article the SYRELI procedure in detail.
FR Rush
Paid service offered by AFNIC that allows an accredited registrar to operate multiple simultaneous EPP connections at the moment of the drop, up to 60 per registrar. Each FR Rush connection costs approximately 150 EUR excl. VAT for 30 days. It is the central technical tool of .fr drop-catching platforms: without FR Rush, capturing a contested domain against equipped competitors is statistically impossible. As of mid-2025, seven registrars had hit the 60-connection cap, totalling roughly 420 connections concentrated at the top of the market.
FR Performance (Platinium)
Premium annual AFNIC offering for professional registrars, bundling FR Lock, FR Watch, Zonemaster and SQUAW for approximately 290 EUR excl. VAT per month. Designed for registrars combining volume and need for protection against warehousing, it complements FR Rush by providing monitoring and security tools. To be distinguished from FR Rush, which is only an increase in EPP connections.
SQUAW
AFNIC anti-warehousing service designed to prevent excessive domain hoarding by a single registrant for speculative purposes. Priced at approximately 10,000 EUR excl. VAT per year standalone, or included in the FR Performance (Platinium) offering. SQUAW analyzes mass-registration behavior and may trigger sanctions up to loss of accreditation for registrars circumventing the rules. Relevant only for operators managing very large volumes.
NIC-handle
Unique identifier assigned by AFNIC to a contact (registrant, administrative, technical) associated with a .fr domain name. The NIC-handle takes the form of a short alphanumeric identifier (e.g. A1234-FRNIC). The same NIC-handle can be reused across multiple domains, which simplifies portfolio management. During drop-catching, the registrar assigns the freshly captured domain to an existing or new NIC-handle depending on its anonymization strategy. Beyond the nominal, NIC-handles are publicly queryable via the .fr WHOIS.
Registrar / BE
Official AFNIC term for an accredited operator authorized to register .fr domain names with the registry, equivalent to the international term "registrar". AFNIC accreditation requires passing a technical and legal exam, signing a framework contract, and paying annual fees. As of 2026, approximately 420 registrars are accredited with AFNIC, but only about twenty are active in high-performance drop-catching. Our monthly barometer tracks the activity of the main registrars via open data.
Drop
Precise moment, to the millisecond, when AFNIC releases an expired .fr domain name and makes it available for public registration again. The drop occurs during daily deletion batches at publicly known times (typically late afternoon Paris time). It is the critical instant T for drop-catching operations: equipped registrars attempt to send their CREATE EPP command exactly at this moment, competing with each other to grab the name first.
Snapping
Strict synonym of drop-catching. Both terms refer to the technical act of capturing a domain name at the precise millisecond of its release by the registry. Professionals in the .fr market use one or the other interchangeably. Snapping requires dedicated infrastructure: AFNIC registrar accreditation, prepared EPP connection, millisecond-level time synchronization (chrony, PTP or GPS), and ideally several active FR Rush connections in parallel.
Anti-snipe
Automatic extension mechanism for an online auction when a bidder places an offer in the final seconds. Anti-snipe adds extra time (typically 1 to 3 minutes) to allow other bidders to react, neutralizing the sniping strategy (placing your bid at the very last second to prevent competitors from outbidding). On Milodomain, the anti-snipe is 3 minutes: any bid in the last 3 minutes extends the auction by that much.
Vickrey auction (first-price sealed-bid)
Type of sealed-bid auction where each participant submits a secret offer without knowing the others, and the highest bidder wins the lot at the price they proposed. A variant of the model theorized by William Vickrey (Nobel Prize 1996). Used by WebExpire for .fr drops, to be distinguished from the transparent public auction (Milodomain, Nicsell) where each bid is visible and the winner pays the second price plus an increment.
301 redirect
Permanent HTTP redirect between two URLs, used to point an old domain to a new one while transferring most of the accumulated SEO juice. Classic strategy after acquiring an expired domain: you buy a high-authority name, redirect 301 to your main project to recover the relevant backlinks. Google takes a few weeks to several months to fully transfer authority. The 301 redirect must be thematically coherent, otherwise Google may consider it abusive and devalue it.
PBN (Private Blog Network)
Private network of sites built on expired high-authority domain names, whose objective is to generate inbound links to a target "money site" to boost its Google ranking. A gray-hat practice that is technically legal but sanctioned by Google guidelines if detected. Expired domains are the classic raw material of a PBN: you buy names with backlinks, host them on separate IPs with light thematic content, and occasionally insert links to the target. High risk of mass deindexation if Google identifies the network.
Pending delete
EPP status shown by AFNIC during a .fr domain's redemption period (alongside the redemption period status): the domain is being deleted, no longer works (site and emails down) and only its registrar can still restore it on the holder's behalf, until the end of the 30 days. Unlike gTLDs such as .com, .fr has no separate multi-day pending delete phase after redemption: at the end of the 30 days the domain is deleted then released (drop) at the next AFNIC batch, which runs at minute :32 of an hour. That is the moment drop-catching becomes possible.
Parking page
Static web page displayed by default on a domain name that is unused or recently acquired, while waiting for a more ambitious project to be deployed. Parking pages can be monetized by displaying automatic advertising links (Google AdSense, Sedo Parking, etc.), typically generating a few euros per month depending on residual domain traffic. On an expired domain with strong history, the parking page can be profitable for the first few months thanks to residual direct traffic and existing incoming links.
Cybersquatting
Practice of registering a domain name reusing a trademark registered by a third party, with the aim of reselling it at a high price to its legitimate owner or deriving an indirect benefit from it (traffic diversion, advertising monetization). Cybersquatting is sanctioned in France via AFNIC's SYRELI procedure, which allows a trademark owner to recover the disputed name within 2 months for approximately 250 EUR. Cybersquatting exposes its perpetrator to damages in addition to the loss of the domain.
AFNIC drop-list
Public list updated daily by AFNIC, listing .fr domain names that will be deleted from the registry in the coming days. The drop-list is freely consultable and allows drop-catching operators to plan their capture attempts. Platforms like Milodomain and their competitors automatically integrate the drop-list into their selection pipeline. The drop-list gives no competitive advantage (everyone has it), but without it, no serious operation is possible.
Trademark conflict
Legal situation in which a domain name reproduces or imitates a trademark registered by a third party with INPI or WIPO. The trademark owner can then initiate a recovery procedure via SYRELI (AFNIC) or UDRP (ICANN for international TLDs). Before purchasing an expired domain, checking the absence of a corresponding trademark is an essential reflex: a domain acquired for 50 EUR can lead to 250 EUR of SYRELI fees plus damages if the conflict is proven.
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