I purchased my domain: withlovebysleepy.com through shopify. It was all connected and running smoothly, for a while. However today I checked on my website to see that domain did not direct to my shopify store - it was an invalid url. So i checked my ‘domain’ page in settings and there was NOTHING there. Like nothing was connected at all. It asked if I wanted to purchase a new domain or connect an existing. Thinking maybe the year was up I tired to buy the domain again but it says ‘unavailable’ so I’m thinking I still have the domain purchased. However since it was purchased through shopify I don’t know how to reconnect it.
That is certainly an interesting one. I understand that you purchased the withlovebysleepy.com domain through Shopify, and now you cannot access the domain or see it in your store Settings > Domains section. I tested the domain myself and it is also not working for me.
Can you confirm when you purchased this domain on Shopify? Is it possible that it was over a year ago and the domain has since expired? This can sometimes happen if auto-renewal is not enabled for the domain. You could try searching your emails to find a record of the purchase, or if you can login to your Shopify Admin you can browse through older bills in Settings > Billing and try find the domain purchase invoice date.
In this case, I would recommend reaching out to Shopify Support here who can authenticate you and take a look at your account. They will be able to help you figure out what is happening with this domain. Sometimes when domains expire they can enter into what is called a ‘Grace Period’ in which the domain can still be recovered, however our support team will be able to confirm if this is the case.
Have you considered using international domains to target specific countries or regions? An easy way to do this is with Shopify Markets, where you can create localized shopping experiences and target specific locations. Learn more about using international domains with Shopify Markets here.
Thank you so much for your quick response.
I found my confirmation email for the domain purchase. It was purchased on 2/16/21. However my domain WAS working in March, which would have been past the year point. So I do think I had the auto renew turned on.
Every time I try to go to Shopify Support I just get redirected to articles and am unable to reach any actual members of the support team to help me with this process. Is there a direct phone number I am able to reach, or an email?
You are most welcome. Thanks for letting me know about the domain purchase date. It is definitely possible that the domain expired in February, however it continued to work for a while as it was in the grace/renewal period. That would certainly explain why the domain stopped working all of a sudden, and has disappeared from your admin.
As I mentioned it is possible that we may be able to manually renew the domain for you, and get it back working on your store but a member of our support team will need to take a look at the available options first.
We don’t have a direct support number, however I’d be happy to explain the steps required to get through to our support team. When you click this link here, it should bring you to a page where you can login and select your store. After that you will need to enter a topic in the top search bar, and click Search. I did this and searched for ‘Domain’ in my screenshot below:
At the bottom of this search results page you will find a green button that says Continue underneath where it says Get Support. Click that and you will be brought to a page showing the contact options. For this topic I would recommend live chat, however feel free to use other methods of contact.
