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General discussion

LOST WEBSITE

Oct 31, 2007 10:49PM PDT

A couple of weeks ago I was able to click into my website until just recently I am unable to do this now. When clicking into it now, I get an entirely different site not related to anything I had originally developed. I had a person develop the site for me ($500!!) and it worked perfectly until just recently. Could you please explain what caused the site to go down and if there is a way to bring it back?
My domain is still current: www.abramsfunding.com
Thanks,
Rich Abrams
rabrams1@gmail.com

Discussion is locked

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Please tell more.
Oct 31, 2007 11:50PM PDT

If I click on the link, I get a page, but I don't know what's wrong with it.

Noteworthy: "the why am I seeing this website"-link at the bottom. I've never seens such before. It's a mailto-link to "info@whois-help.info" with the description "Inquiring about the domain abramsfunding.com, with status: Registered". Using that link may lead to the answer to your question.

Possibly you forgot to pay the yearly registration for your site so it's expired, and it's more or less hijacked now. Somebody (maybe you!)) should have taken care of that. But the status still says: registered, which looks rather promising.
When did you last pay, and for what period?

I hope that http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=whois-help.info will be of some help. Have a look at your whois-registration to start with. Then it might be a good idea to contact both the website developer and the company that did your original registration and your current hosting provider with some questions. They might be able to help you.

I mailed to them (info@whois-help.info) posing as an innocent outsider who just happened to click on the link. If I get any reply, I'll post it here. Maybe it's better that you don't do anything yourself yet. They might be asking money from you to give you your domain back once they know you. And I'm unconnected with the site, so they can't really ask me.


Kees

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Info link
Oct 31, 2007 11:57PM PDT

I clicked into the info link at the btm number of times and never received a response...but I believe you are correct in stating the registration has never been paid. I am trying to followup with the woman who set this up but I am getting nowhere with her. I am asking for a refund (right, lots of luck, huh?)

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lost website
Nov 1, 2007 3:29AM PDT

Kees, if this person is unable to retrieve the site, what alternatives do I have, other than asking for a refund? Would I have to start over again with another site and domain name? I thought I had a printout of my site but unfortunately, I don't. The site was posted in July of this year and it was good for a year.

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Re: what to do?
Nov 2, 2007 5:05AM PDT

Indeed, start all over with a hosting company of your choice, an newly registered new domain and a reliable web-designer. See my notes below.

Kees

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Look at whois
Nov 1, 2007 5:05AM PDT

I just looked at the Whois information for this site and it appears the domain was registered in June of 2007 and should not need to be renewed until 2008. This almost indicates that the domain wasn't paid for to begin with.

This is registered through ENOM from what I can tell, so it might be worth contacting them. There is also a Yahoo e-mail address on record with the Whois...whose e-mail address is this? Contact from the registrar will probably go through this e-mail address.

The other problem COULD have to do with the hosting account and the nameservers that are assigned.

Your best bet is to contact your designer. Failing to do that, contact the registrar and see what they are willing to do for you. You have a better case if you have documentation showing the domain is yours as well as having the e-mail address or mailing address on the whois record the same as yours.

Once you work through this, I highly recommend that you learn what all is involved with having a website. This includes understanding how domain names are regsitered and how that relates to hosting and design.

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ENOM
Nov 1, 2007 5:33AM PDT

Thanks for responding to me...I contacted ENOM and there was nothing they could do for me as the web designer is the owner. I am certainly at a standstill here as I have letters, brochures & business cards ready to go out!

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Some lessons to learn.
Nov 1, 2007 6:56AM PDT

As entrecon (sensible as always) remarks it's good to know something about the web, a site and how to handle it. So a few points to start with.

1. The site (the text and pictures) is somewhere on a big computer (a server) with a company called a 'hosting provider' that 'hosts' the site. Depending on how big your site is, and how many visitors you have, you pay them a yearly fee, which is reasonable of course.

2. To have your site accessible on the internet, it must have a url (like www.cnet.com) and that needs to be registered (it must be unique all over the world, there's only one www.cnet.com). That can be done via the hosting provider, but just as well you can do it independently. That's a one-time fee, and a yearly fee (could be included in the hosting price).

3. Somebody should make the contents (the text and pictures) of your site and put it in the right place on the computer of the hosting provider. That's your website designer (but in principle you can do it yourself also, like I'm maintaining the website of my chess club).

4. $500 isn't so much. It's 1 hour of a top lawyer, it's about 1 day of a mediocre website designer ($60 an hour is cheap), and less than 1 week of an IT-student designing sites to earn some money. And you get what you pay for.

5. When paying somebody to make software (or a website, which is essentially the same) to you, you can require that he gives you a cd with an exact copy of what he puts on the site, plus full instructions on how to use it and how to update the site.
The contract between you two should clearly state that you're the owner of everything he makes for you (because you pay for it), and that ownership gives you the right to have it yourself, so you can put it on any site with any hosting provider you like. That's just sound business practice.

6. You should handle the contacts with the hosting company (#1) and the independent registration (if you use that, #2) yourself. They are registering and handling your site, not the site of the developer. The developer only develops. You own and run the site.

7. It's more usual for a hosting company to offer designing services than the other way around. If it's a respectable and well-known company that might be good offer. Still, see #5 above.

About the current state of your affairs.
If the web designer is the owner of the site, she clearly handled it very badly: it's an advertising site now. And the owner of such a site gets money for every click on a sponsored link. So much even, that it seems he's not interested in selling it back to you. Or he would have answered your mails.
Moreover, any serious website designer keeps a backup copy of everything she makes.
If you "get nowhere with her" and "she can't retrieve the site" all you can do is find a good lawyer and have him threaten to sue her. It's reasonable she pays back your money, plus the cost you made for the letters, brochures and business cards (they have to be reprinted with your new url, because your current one is unusable) and - of course - compensate your damages because you can't start with your business right now until this is all settled. With your business plan showing you will earn $1000 a day she'd better hurry.

I'd say you've been screwed. Your website designer is either completely incompetent or rightout fraudulous. Sorry to note so, but it's the only possible conclusion from what you write.

Best of luck,


Kees

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LOST WEBSITE again
Jan 27, 2008 6:54PM PST

Hello Rich,
I read your mail and checking your website I saw that you solved your problem .
I have since the end of october the same problem with mine www.s-toneinc.com ,the website I own for my musical activity, , as another page from Whois appears instead of mine,listing correlated website about stones.....
I have paid my annual fee and the website is still registred under my name and my webdesigner has no fault about the loss of my website.
I also tried to contact ENOM but they never replied with coeherent argumentations.
I was wondering how you solved your problem as I think that this could help me to solve mine.
thank you
Stefano

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Contact the business ...
Jan 27, 2008 6:58PM PST

you registered your site with and you paid your annual fee to. It's their task to renew it for you.

Kees

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lost webiste
Jan 27, 2008 7:08PM PST

Yes indeed it was paid and registred by my provider but what counts is that everything appears to be regular but the fact that someone is using my website instead of me.
There have been problems between Registerfly and Enom and some websites have not been transfered regularly so they have been used by Enom illegally.
It's almonst impossible to have a response from them as they tell you to write to a different address everytime.
I saw that Rich Abrams got back his website so probably he knows what has to be done.

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Parked Page
Jan 28, 2008 12:06AM PST

The page that is showing up on your domain (www.s-toneinc.com) is what usually shows up on expired domains for certain registrars. It usually isn't something that another user has created, just a way for a registrar to make some money off of the fact someone didn't pay.

The registration does look like it is paid through Oct. 2008, so i would contact eNom to get things worked out.

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lost website
Jan 30, 2008 9:49PM PST

I tried to contact them several times but no one seemed to care about this problem.
IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!