Blog Domain Stolen
I don't know if you can do it with Blogspot but some blog sites allow you to use a domain name for your blog. So, I could buy fredshumboldtblog.com and have that lead to my blog somewhere. Actually, maybe I could use it with Blogspot. Whatever.
Looks like the guy who does the Right On! Blog wasn't paying attention. He bought rightonblog.net and had it direct people to his blog on one of the other blog sites. Somebody apparently snagged his domain out from under him and has it going to one of those advertising sites. Now he'll have to pay the big bucks to get his domain back or just use the blog site location for his blog.
Biggest problem as I see it for him: How would you get your normal blog visitors back and direct them to a new url? Bummer.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:00 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
I'm glad I have supporters out there :)
I missed the expiration notice on my domain, but luckily my registrar puts a 6 month lock on all expired domains to protect from expiration sniping.
I'm back online (had to pay $11)
You lucked out. I had a couple domains snagged from me. I checked into one of them and the outfit I registered it with said it would cost something like $89.00 to get it back. I got the feeling they were involved in the skullduggery, perhaps waiting for it to expire and then holding on to it themselves while asking for ransom. I just let them keep it.
Huh. I just noticed you are with blogspot. I thought you were with one of the other blog sites.
Nope, I'm self hosted... I pay $6 a month for space @ surpasshosting.com and $8 for the domain per year.
I did start out on Blogger but jumped ship about a month in and went self hosted.
Also, my registrar puts a hold on expired domains so they CAN'T be sniped upon expiration.
I wish mine would do that.
Fred, which registar wanted to charge you $89?
There is a downside of "holding" domains. There are two types of domain buyers: creeps and legitimate buyers. If you don't want your domain anymore, it's blocked from legitimate buyers for 6 months more than necessary, and what's to stop a registrar from waiting a year, or 2 years or ??
The solution is simpler. Send a domain holder three reminders by e-mail and snail mail and then release a domain on its actual expiration date.
At each step, give the domain holder the opportunity to say, "I'm really letting it expire. Goodbye." Or have the registar call the customer as a last resort and if the customer renews at that point, charge him $10 for extensive trouble he caused. It's probably due to incorrect information in his domain record, which you can then go about correcting, too.
10:50 wrote, "Fred, which registar wanted to charge you $89?".
I bought two through
www.onednr.com
and the original price wasn't bad. Something like $10 or $12 a year.
When I inquired about my humboldtshooters.net domain, after it got snagged, they replied that it was being held under (name for it escapes me now) and if I wanted it released, I could get it back for $89.00, or something along that line.
Since that came from onednr, it sounded to me like they knew exactly was going on and might have been involved in it. It would be certainly easy for them to do so in their position.
But I probably shouldn't point fingers unless I'm sure about what happened.
I remember getting at least one renewal notice for one of the domains. I might have gotten more but don't recall. Sometimes you get different people trying to get you to renew your domain early, so they can get in on it, so the legit renewal offers might have gotten mixed up with the hucksters.
Go to a reliable company (I use Godaddy.com). Very inexpensive, and they have automatic renewal. Simple, inexpensive, and reliable. That way your domains never get sniped. You can move you domains and they give you credit for the following year.
Looks like Ilana Mercer let her domain expire, as well. As I write this, my bookmark to her blog goes to a generic links page as happened to James.
http://blog.ilanamercer.com/
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