Give a recurring event one permanent domain with no year in it, and a page for each year's results and photographs. Keep renewing the old year domains and redirect each to its matching year page.

Last year's address, showing someone else's page

A volunteer for a summer charity run clicks a link in a sponsor's old newsletter and lands on a page of advertising. The address, the run's name with a year in it, used to be its website.

Each spring the committee registered a new domain with the coming year in it. Last year's lapsed, and the one before is now held by a company that buys expired names.

Festivals, trade shows and fundraising walks share the habit. A new year seems to call for a new address, but the old ones stay in use.

Where the old addresses keep turning up

An event's address travels further and lasts longer than anything else about it, into places the organisers never see again:

All of them still point at the old domain. When it lapses, each becomes a link to whatever its next owner chooses to show.

What happens to a domain nobody renews

A domain is registered for a fixed term. If nobody renews it, it stops working, sits in a short grace period, and is then released for anyone to register.

Names that still draw visitors are bought quickly, often by software watching for them, then filled with advertising or offered back for a price.

Email on that domain stops too. The registration inbox no longer receives anything, and a new holder could set it up to collect mail meant for the event.

Starting from nothing every spring

A new domain has no history with Google and no links. Each year the site starts from nothing, while searches for the event keep finding last year's address.

The links partners gave the event last year still count, but for an address it has abandoned. On one permanent domain, each year's links add to the years before.

Visitors notice too. A different address every year makes the real event harder to tell from an imitation, and old results and photographs harder to find.

One permanent name, a page for each year

Register a domain with the event's name and no year in it. Its home page always shows the next event: date, place, registration and what is new.

Each past year gets its own page there, with the date, results, photographs and sponsors. Those pages never move, so links to them keep working.

Registration, volunteer and sponsor pages keep the same addresses and are updated each year, so a partner's link to them stays current.

A worked example

A truck accessories shop in Prince George sells and fits canopies, racks, running boards and lift kits. Every August it runs a show and shine, with entry fees going to a local charity.

For six years a staff member had registered a domain with the show's name and the year, on a personal account. Two had lapsed, and one now showed advertising.

That address was still printed on a banner that partner businesses hung in their windows each summer. The shop heard about it from a customer.

The shop registered a permanent domain with the show's name, in the business's own name, and built a page for each past show from a regular entrant's photographs.

The year domains still held were renewed for several years, each redirected to its own year's page. Partners received the new addresses, and this year's posters carry the permanent one.

Redirecting the domains you still hold

For each old domain the event still controls, set up a permanent redirect to the matching year page. Someone following an old poster then lands on the right year.

Search engines treat a permanent redirect as a change of address and gradually show the new page instead. Links to the old domain then lead somewhere the event controls.

Keep renewing those old domains for several years. A renewal costs little next to what the address still carries, and letting it go hands its visitors to a stranger.

Where a domain is already lost, the redirect is not yours to set. Ask partners and news sites to update their links, and expect some old posters to lead elsewhere.

Who holds the registration

Event domains often sit on a volunteer's personal account and card, with renewal reminders going to an address nobody reads once that volunteer moves on.

Register the permanent domain in the organisation's name, with a role email address as the contact. Renew several years at a time, and record the login where the next committee will find it.

Do not make an address on the event's own domain the only contact. If that domain lapses, the reminders go to a mailbox that has already stopped working.

Addresses that outlast the year

Print the permanent domain on posters, banners, shirts and printed programs. A banner reused for several summers stays correct, and an old poster still leads to the current event.

Move the event's email there too, with role addresses for registration and sponsors rather than people's names.

The counter-case

A one-off event that will never run again has no next year to build towards. A short-lived domain is reasonable, kept a while and then pointed at the organiser's main site.

An event that changes its name and theme each year, as some conferences do, may sensibly take a new name each time. A permanent home for the series still keeps its history together.

And an event with years of links on a dated domain should not abandon it. Redirect it into the permanent site page by page, so nothing it built up is lost.

Before this year's posters go to print

  1. List every domain the event has ever used.
  2. Check which are still held, and by whom.
  3. Register one permanent domain with no year in it.
  4. Build a page for each past year.
  5. Redirect each old domain to its year's page.
  6. Move the registrations into the organisation's name.
  7. Print only the permanent address from now on.

Step five rescues the past. The day each redirect goes in, every poster, partner link and news story pointing at that domain leads to the right page again.

Thanking sponsors without a wall of logos covers what each year's page should say about the sponsors who made that year possible.

Frequently asked questions

Why not register a new domain for each year's event?

Each new domain starts without links or search history, and the old one eventually lapses, leaving posters and partner links pointing at an address anyone can buy.

What happens when an event domain expires?

It stops working, sits briefly in a grace period, then becomes available to anyone. Names that still draw visitors are often bought quickly and filled with advertising.

How should the old year domains be redirected?

With a permanent redirect from each old domain to the matching year page on the permanent domain, so visitors from old posters and links land on the right year.

How long should old domains be kept?

For several years at least. A renewal costs little next to the links and visitors an old address still carries, and a lapsed name goes to whoever registers it next.

Who should hold the event's domain?

The organisation, not a volunteer. Register it in the organisation's name with a role email address, renew several years at a time and record where the login is kept.

What if an old year domain is already lost?

The redirect is no longer yours to set. Ask partners and news sites to update their links to the permanent domain, and print only that address from now on.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

A new domain for your event every year?

Send us the list of addresses the event has used, and we will plan the permanent domain and the redirects.

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