Domain Names, Cyber Squatters and a Farewell to WebmasterFarms

March 9, 2008

You may have noticed a change lately to webmasterfarms.com… my old site (not by choice I might add) is now PureWebAnalytics.com. Why the change you ask? Well it started yesterday morning when I logged into my hotmail account and saw an email from GoDaddy.com sitting there that says my Domain Name has been cancelled. I emailed GoDaddy.com support and I am still waiting for a reply from them about this issue (more then 24 hours later) about my missing domain name which I have now figured out has been sold off to cyber-squatters to basically create a bidding war on the popularity of WebmasterFarms.com. Man I was pissed off to say the least and I still am very anger about this.

I came to the realization that the domain name is gone so my next thought is “I need a new domain name” and hence you have PureWebAnalytics.com. The core scope of my business is developing web presences around website analysis to build and improve online processes for businesses. WebmasterFarms.com had a pretty sexy sounding name that kind of rolled off the tongue. PureWebAnalytics.com hits the keywords of my business right in the title which is something that WebmasterFarms.com couldn’t do. Looking back on the last few days I realize that this may be a blessing in disguise

Pains in the Ass

Setting up Google Analytics again – setting up GA takes a little time but the stats are going to change, filters and funnels need to be setup and I am going to have to wait to see the results again… bummer
SEO efforts gone down the drain – I am not sure to what extent my SEO efforts have been affected because only the primary URL has changed (not the article names I’ve written)
Restoring my WordPress Database and fixing password and link issues – This is by far the most upsetting part of any problem a company faces with their website. What happened to my data? I was able to backup a copy of my mySQL database using phpMyAdmin but restoring became a huge problem because of the amount of data I had on the database. My phpMyAdmin account was only provisioned to import up to 2.4 MB of database. Not a lot at all given that I have a lot of information available to the public online.

Having a cool new domain name…. Priceless?!!!

Certainly one must watch out for Cyber-Squatters because they are everywhere just waiting to take possession of a perfectly good domain name and sell it back to you at a premium price. Because the focus of WebmasterFarms.com started off in web mastering but has moved into web analytics and web design based on improving past results I find it fitting that I choose to get a new domain name NOT because I want to but because I don’t want to go into a bidding war to get my domain back.

This brings forth a list of things that every website owner or company that runs and maintains a website should do

Always Backup your databases – You don’t want to be starting from scratch should you lose your database. Sometimes and in most cases it is not the responsibility of your hosting company to keep up-to-date backups of your account… check with your web hosting company first.

Always Check “Auto-Review” for your domain name and keep your credit card/billing information up to date

SEO starts with your domain name – if you own a web hosting company then your domain name should probably have “hosting” “host” or “web hosting” in the domain name. If you run a website devoted to your flooring business then “floors”, “flooring”, “floor” or something similar should be including in the business because a good website starts with a well-thought out domain name.

Needless to say this is the reason that i haven’t had any postings recently. I think one of my up coming articles will be “How do i Backup my Website?”

Luc

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Posted by Lucas | Filed Under General, PureWebAnalytics News, Web Design Resources