The Unnecesarean Has a New URL: www.theunnecesarean.com
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 12:00AM
Before reading this post, go check right now if your domain name is set for auto-renew and that you do not have a defunct e-mail address on file. That will make me feel better.
On Sunday morning, I woke up and saw that site traffic had ceased for three hours. Squarespace said that the site was live on their end and recommended that I contact GoDaddy about my domain name. GoDaddy informed me that my domain name had just expired that morning.
“OK, what do I need to do to pay for another year?” I asked.
“Well, it’s already been purchased,” said Lee.
Lee told me that someone had backordered the domain name, obviously waiting for it to expire. I attempted to contact the cybersquatter later that day when the registration info became available on WHOIS to see if I could buy it back.
Today, that cybersquatter cybersquatted on my head and farted on it. Someone in Indonesia bought the domain and mapped it to a blank WordPress blog.
The feeling of everything suddenly grinding to a halt is like accidentally hitting the gas, driving off the edge of the Grand Canyon and hearing nothing but wind whizzing past. I have become so accustomed to multiple daily interactions on the blog that I felt a little stunned to have vanished off the face of the Internet.
If someone had told me twenty-five years ago that I would be trying to contact a stranger in Indonesia to regain possession of a name, a period and the letters c, o and m, I wouldn’t have even turned my head from my game of Zork on my Apple IIe to ask the what they were talking about.
I feel foolish. I also feel really bad that many of your blogs are riddled with dead links. The Internet is, like, totally ruined and it’s all my fault. I’ve begun the process of mending hundreds of links manually on the site, but time is not the biggest thing lost by me and my carelessness in not having an updated e-mail address on file to receive expiration warnings.
The Unnecesarean had just entered into what I think of as a fairly high traffic site. It wasn’t the number of hits that I cared about; rather, it was the search engine prevalence that came as a result of eleven months of writing, branding and commenting that drove up hits and brought this site up first in some keyword searches that I consider to be very important. I think back to the terms for which I was desperately searching in that final week of my first pregnancy when multiple care providers at the hospital were pulling the dead baby card on me, trying over and over to get me to consent to a scheduled cesarean for fetal macrosomia and I hope that those searches will one day make it back to The Unnecesarean.
For awhile, an opportunist in Indonesia will be taking advantage of July’s near 50,000 hits, rapidly increasing Alexa.com rating and hundreds of daily keyword searches. Hopefully the parasitic relationship will die off as soon as traffic to the proper URL, www.theunnecesarean.com picks up.
The new feed URLs for the blog and birth stories are:
http://www.theunnecesarean.com/blog/rss.xml
http://www.theunnecesarean.com/birth-stories/rss.xml
Coming soon to the site… Disqus comments!
Reader Comments (16)
What a disappointment! So sorry that happened. Well, here's a comment to help bolster the new URL. :-)
Thank you, Sarah!
What a pain! Hope everything gets caught up soon.
Dang! I was wondering why I hadn't seen any posts from you in the last few days! I'm glad you're back. :-)
I was wondering the same as Buscando! You'll be up to the same level of world domination and general awesomeness before you know it. No worries. Just sorry you had to deal with the stress, though!
Good grief! I thought at first that your blog was - gasp - censored! Glad to still have you.
Glad you are back. I missed you!
I missed you all, too! That was a rough day and a half. :)
It happens! (as I told myself this summer while repeatedly hitting myself on the head for not backing up my hard drive). I'll start fixing links from my blog! We'll get you back up!
Silly Silly internet!
Yeah...I'm glad all you needed was a THE.
Welcome back!
http://realityrounds.com/2009/07/29/the-unnecesarean-com-hows-that-for-subtle-advertising/
Sorry about your domain name. But we found you anyway!
WTF? Sorry to hear of your troubles.
Thanks, Pinky. It was truly a WTF moment for many reasons. Also a WhyTF didn't I make sure my e-mail address was on file correctly? Arrrrrrgh.
Jill, this is what you can try but you need to undertake immediate action as its still possible for you to trade mark the name you used, as soon as you've got it trademarked you can use it as leverage to regain the domain, or undertake direct legal action. Your legal advisor can then send a cease and desist letter to the new owner telling him that registering this name is a trademark infringement and that use of the domain name is actionable under the UDRP. UDRP is the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. Under this policy, most trademark-based domain name disputes are resolved by agreement, court action, or arbitration hearing before a registrar will cancel, suspend, or transfer a domain name. For more information look at Icann.org.
Considering the amount of traffic your domain had I think its a case worth fighting for as its value both social and financial is substantial. Trademarking is not that expensive find info on Google. Don't let the little pr.ck get away with it. If there's anyway I can help you, let me know.
When your links didn't work, I didn't know what to do; I was sure you wouldn't delete your blog. If it hadn't occurred to me to search or you didn't have a Twitter page, I'd still be dazed. It's sad that you feel foolish but the asshole who bought your name doesn't care. The domain jerks should've warned you about backordering and, when e-mail didn't work, they could've contacted you via the domain! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! I don't know whether to be angry the asshole is wasting your name or relieved (s)he isn't using it for something revolting.