What does "URL expired" mean?

Answer: If you see a message on a website that says, "URL expired," it could mean one of several things.

1. Your session has expired. If you logged into a website and have been inactive for awhile, your session may expire. A session is a limited time of communication between two systems, often initiated by a login process. Web sessions (or HTTP sessions) often expire after a certain amount of time, such as 15 or 30 minutes, for security purposes. If this happens, you'll need to log in again.
2. The URL is no longer valid. In some cases, "URL expired" may be used synonymously with a 404 page not found error. This means the server is responding, but the specific URL is not valid. A 404 error may be caused by a bad link or may appear when a page has been removed and can no longer be accessed.
3. The website has been removed from the web server. Many websites are hosted on shared servers, meaning a single machine hosts multiple sites. If a website has been removed or suspended by the server administrator, you may see a "website expired" error when you try to access it.

Another possible meaning of "URL expired" is that a website's domain name has expired. This happens if the domain owner does not renew the domain name before the expiration date. However, this message will not appear on the web since an expired domain name will not resolve to the server. Instead, your browser will display an error message saying the server could not be found.

Published: January 29, 2014 — by Per Christensson