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Post by msdani1981 on Aug 25, 2016 23:37:05 GMT -5
Why the forum has a different domain name...well, we're all family here, so I'll explain. A couple months ago, it was brought to my attention that the forum domain name had expired. I tried to contact Shelly (the founder of quakerparrots.com and this forum), but she never responded to my messages. I contacted Dee, our other Administrator, and she sent a message to Shelly that also wasn't answered. So, in order to keep the forum active, I renewed the domain name with ProBoards. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware that that was only half of the problem. Yesterday, it seemed that the forum had disappeared. I was freaking out, because I didn't know what the heck was going on. Luckily, a friend of mine is very computer savvy, and told me what the error message meant: the domain name had expired, and someone else had bought it. That left me baffled, because I had just renewed the domain name. My friend told me that, although I renewed it through ProBoards, it wasn't renewed at the host site (I didn't know that I had to, or what the host site was). So last night I started the process of getting a new domain name, and linking it to the forum. I won't go into the details, but I had no clue what I was doing, and it was making me really mad. LOL Aaron helped me out last night and this morning I was able to get it up and working. Yay!! I made Aaron an Admin, also. :-) I still haven't heard from Shelly, and I'm worried about her. If I do hear from her, I really hope that she understands that I had to do this to keep the forum alive. Anyway, I wanted to let you all know why the forum changed. As always, if you have questions or concerns, please contact me on here, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/msdani1981Dani |
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Post by easttex on Aug 26, 2016 4:47:09 GMT -5
Ahh, all the blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes to make a nearly effortless experience for us users. It's probably a good thing this didn't happen earlier when you felt so awful. Thanks, Dani, for all you do to keep things on track. And congratulations, Aaron, on the promotion! Well deserved.  |
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Post by julianna on Aug 26, 2016 13:56:08 GMT -5
I second that... thank you Dani and Aaron. Wonderful to have the site back.
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Post by aaron on Aug 30, 2016 12:59:56 GMT -5
Thanks all! And thanks again to you, Dani, for doing what needed to be done in order to keep the site running. The sad thing, however, is that it seems we've lost essentially all of our guest traffic, probably because the links from quakerparrots.com no longer point to the correct site. Unfortunately, without Shelly, I'd imagine we have no way to change this. It's possible we might be able to buy this domain back. It was probably bought by a bot of sorts as a "ransom domain"... my understanding is that established sites with expired domains often get hijacked like this, in hopes that the people running the site will be willing to pay more to get the domain back, or to usurp the traffic of the already established site. Here's some more information about it: www.expiry.com/members/knowledgebase/80/Someone-stole-my-domain-name---what-do-I-do-.htmlThe problem is that without Shelly, who was the legitimate owner of the domain, I can't see how we could possibly argue much on the behalf of this domain, which is sad. All of this said, I'm not entirely sure even if this domain has been stolen, or if the registrar simply took back the domain and put the domain into a "reserved" status as a probationary period... essentially giving Shelly a grace period to buy it back. The reason I say this is because the WHOIS record shows this domain as being in "clientTransferProhibited" status, which means it is essentially locked and cannot be transferred between parties. This really isn't my realm of expertise, but I think there's a chance the probationary period may end and we will have the opportunity to buy this domain again. I will see if I can find a way to keep tabs on it. If we can't get the domain back, we will have to think about what lengths we are willing to go to in order to publicize the forum again. As it stands, I would predict that our stream of new members is going to dry up, and generally our exposure to people looking for information on Quakers is now a small fraction of what it used to be.  |
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Post by aaron on Aug 30, 2016 13:16:52 GMT -5
I've set up an alert with domainhole.com such that if anything changes about the registration status of quakerparrotforum.com
The registrar that is listed for quakerparrotforum.com is Enom.com, and I went to their site and inquired about the domain and it told me that it is actually registered with one of their resellers, namespace.com. So I went to namespace.com and found that it will allow me to "make an offer" for the domain through domainagents.com ... The minimum offer is $199. They claim to be able to present the offer to the owner. I'm willing to give this a shot, but I wish it would tell me who the owner is. Currently this information is blocked:
It looks like the domain has been registered in Panama... So it seems like there's a good chance the domain has been stolen. I will go ahead and send that anonymized registrant email address a message explaining our situation and inquiring about the status of the domain.
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Post by msdani1981 on Aug 30, 2016 15:54:47 GMT -5
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Post by siobhan on Aug 30, 2016 16:32:48 GMT -5
Wow. Who knew all this was even possible, much less that bots and nefarious types would swipe a name? Thanks for all you do (and for all you're doing, Aaron, though I didn't understand a fraction of what you said, LOL). Surely there's some way of getting the new name to pop up in Google if someone queries "Quaker parrot"? That's how I found this forum when Clyde first adopted us.
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Post by aaron on Aug 30, 2016 17:16:30 GMT -5
Yes, there are definitely ways... The most effective ones cost money, but I'm sure we can figure out more affordable or free ones as well. If we are unable to get the old domain back, I will start investigating ways to promote the site. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is also not my forte, but I'm sure we can figure it out. |
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Post by msdani1981 on Aug 30, 2016 21:06:19 GMT -5
Don't feel bad, Siobhan, it's WAY over my head, too! LOL
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Post by julianna on Aug 31, 2016 13:57:18 GMT -5
Without prejudice... it is all Chinese to me. Good luck to you guys... and let us know how it comes along. If you need a donation.. please let me know as I am willing to help.
I might not be able to help on the computer side... but I can help on the pocket book side... lol
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Post by siobhan on Aug 31, 2016 14:38:38 GMT -5
I can't help on either front at the moment, but when it comes down to it, maybe I can contribute a bit of cash, too.
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Post by msdani1981 on Aug 31, 2016 16:59:48 GMT -5
I have the warm fuzzies! It touches my heart that you guys love this forum as much as I do! :-)
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Post by aaron on Aug 31, 2016 22:34:31 GMT -5
You guys are all the best. This forum is definitely something special, and it's all because of the people that are part of it. Love to all of you, and I will keep you posted as things develop!  So far I have not heard back from the new owner of the domain... but it would really surprise me if they didn't respond (unless it somehow doesn't get delivered to them), because I'd wager their whole goal in this is to extort money, so why would they turn down an opportunity to discuss us paying them to get it back... They may be looking for a completely unreasonable amount of money, but I would definitely think they would respond. |
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Post by aaron on Sept 5, 2016 23:09:57 GMT -5
So I still haven't heard back from this guy... which is strange. I guess the email probably didn't go through.
On the bright side, our guest traffic has more than doubled since I last checked, so perhaps the site has now been included in the major search engines and people are finding it more frequently. So that's good.
I wish we could edit the main quakerparrots.com site! Gah!
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Post by aaron on Sept 7, 2016 18:01:17 GMT -5
Well, our guest traffic is looking great now. And thanks to Dani's second email blast, so is our member traffic too. So things are looking pretty good for now!
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