---
title: Smart Website Checker no longer calls a valid domain expired
description: If the domain registry didn't answer during a scan, the Smart Website Checker could report the domain as "expired 0 days ago" and cap the grade at F, even…
canonical: https://watchfor.io/changelog/2026-09-28-smart-check-unknown-domain-expiry
---

[All updates](/changelog/page/2#2026-09-28-smart-check-unknown-domain-expiry) 🐛 Fixed Sep 28, 2026 · v 8.7.9

# Smart Website Checker no longer calls a valid domain expired

If the domain registry didn't answer during a scan, the Smart Website Checker could report the domain as "expired 0 days ago" and cap the grade at F, even when the registration was valid for years. That was our bug. An unanswered or unpublished expiry date now reads as "couldn't check" and doesn't count towards the grade, and a brief registry hiccup is retried minutes later instead of being remembered for a day.

## What you may have seen

A Smart Website Checker scan graded a site F and said its domain had expired 0 days ago , while the registration was actually valid for years.

## Why it happened

The public registry lookup behind the expiry date sometimes doesn't answer in time, or throttles busy periods. When that happened, the missing answer was read as an expiry date of today — so a lookup we couldn't make looked like a domain that had just lapsed.

## What changed

- An unknown expiry date now reads as couldn't check , with a hint to try again in a few minutes, and it no longer affects the grade.

- A brief registry hiccup is retried within minutes instead of being remembered for a day.

- On a Domain monitor, the domain details show Not available from the registry on this check instead of a nonsensical year-0001 date.

## What didn't change

Expiry alerts on Domain monitors were never affected: an unknown date has never fired them, so you were not sent a false "domain expired" alert.

## What to do

Nothing. If a scan showed you that F, run it again — the grade will reflect the real registration.

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Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/changelog/2026-09-28-smart-check-unknown-domain-expiry · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt