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November 21, 2006
Church Loses Domain to a Porn Site
(Filed under: Web Sites)Here's some bad news for your marketing efforts: You lost your domain and a porn site snatched it up. Too bad you just handed out fliers at the local Apple Harvest Day with the old site--now sending lots of unexpecting potential visitors to a porn site. Doh.
True story. It happened to Hope Community Church in Dover, N.H. The mix-up happened when the church was switching Internet service providers and the ISP that sold the url admitted fault. But it's still a good lesson for any church--especially if your annual domain renewal could easily get overlooked by a non-techie staff member or volunteer who hasn't had the time lately. (link via Cory Miller)
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at November 21, 2006 8:22 AM
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Comments
I hate to say it, but there is no excuse for this to happen. Your website is like any property you own -- you have to make sure the funds are available to maintain at least the "title." I tell all congregations I work with to register for a MINIMUM of 10 years (lock in the price today). What does that cost? $70? How can a congregation NOT do that... Don't say budget -- if you don't have $70 to lock in your registration, don't do a website.
If the ISP is at fault, they can fix it. I had an ISP accidentally transfer 2 of my domains to someone else. It took 3 weeks, but they got it back for me.
Posted by: A.B. Dada at November 21, 2006 8:37 AM
(FWIW, I know that the congregation in the article didn't stop paying for their domain name, but I hear this all the time with other congregations).
Also, porn sites don't pick churchy domain names on purpose to create embarassment -- that's a ridiculous and unfounded claim. Many porn sites will register ANYTHING that comes available that has been around longer than a year. It helps them build traffic because known domain names rank higher in Google searches, etc. I've had a few domain names I let expire become porn sites, but they were fairly high traffic and sites that had been around for years. Spammers do it, too. They're not picking on churches, they're taking advantage of the fact that someone owned the domain name, which gives the name value to Google and Yahoo in terms fo ranking.
Posted by: A.B. Dada at November 21, 2006 8:40 AM
A perfect example of why techies should use Domain Monitor. It's free, and it emails you whenever something changes with your domains. I also monitor my friend's domains so they don't make this same mistake.
www.domaintools.com/monitor
Posted by: Travis at November 21, 2006 9:59 AM
Dang, reminds me of some recent troubles we've had with our new server company. We've only been with them about 3 months and have had more down time (their fault) in those three months than the previous six years!
Last time, someone at the company somehow was able to reassign our domain (which we've had for 7 years) without our knowing or permission. And our boss/programmer/techie was out of the country at the time. Very frustrating.
We'll be changing server companies.
Posted by: The Aesthetic Elevator at November 21, 2006 11:23 AM
Bwwwaaahaaahaaaa!
Posted by: Ricky at November 21, 2006 1:32 PM
And the original URL is.....?
Posted by: Will Clarke at December 29, 2006 1:10 PM
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