NJ Transit renews its domain name for 10 years after heavily-trafficked web site goes down

A story that appeared on NJ.com about the New Jersey Transit forgetting to renew its domain name (www.njtransit.com) brought attention to what can happen when you don’t renew your domain name in time.  If you fail to renew, your web site could go down.  

That’s just what happened to njtransit.com, the home of NJ Transit, a web site that averages 600,000 unique visitors per month according to a rough estimate provided by Compete.

“Initially saying the problem was the result of a glitch between the domain name and server that began at 7 a.m., NJ Transit officials later confirmed the domain name expired last Friday”, writes Mike Frassinelli.

To prevent the web site from ever going down again, at least due to the domain expiring, NJ Transit is reported to have renewed the domain name for 20 years according to the story.

“And Stessel said the problem won’t present itself again for quite some time. NJ Transit renewed the domain name for 20 more years.”

However, if you take a look at the Whois record, the problem could pop up again much sooner. At least 10 years sooner in 2021, when the domain is set to expire.