Saving the site

[MrFlibble]

I've just read the e-mail outlining what had happened in the last few days. First off was a huge "whew!" reaction on my part, 'cause I was worried that the site went down for no reason, and with no means to communicate or simply find out what had happened. I suspected cybersquatters, which has turned out to be the case, and frankly I'm pretty upset at the outrageousness of the situation.

My question is, what are the possible solutions to the problem? Do you have to own the classicdosgames.com domain for it to simply redirect to the new address? Is it possible to negotiate a lesser price for the domain? Did you get the response from your old host about why they allowed the delay to happen in the first place which had cost you the old site? Is it possible to file a lawsuit against them? All of this reeks of a scam, but could have also been a result of simple negligence on their part, which is also no excuse of course.

And finally, how can we help here?

[DOSGuy]

Well, first of all, there was simple negligence on my part. In retrospect, I should have gotten the ball rolling sooner. I actually didn't think that 1&1 would give me the authorization codes to transfer the domain, given that my account was permanently closed. Attempting to get the authorization codes was a last ditch effort to save the site.

It's impossible for me to point classicdosgames.com to classicdosgames.org. Only the owner of classicdosgames.com can do that.

I am trying to negotiate a lesser price. $8500 is a lot of money, so I asked the holding company to put me into direct contact with the new owner so that I can negotiate with them without having to go through an intermediary. Of course, it's possible that the "new owner" doesn't exist, and the holding company just wants to determine how much I'm willing to pay.

I don't think I have much grounds to file a lawsuit, and I have very little interest in pursuing international legal action. The costs could easily exceed just paying the $8500.

As for how the community can help, I have no idea. If I end up paying $8500 or more to get the domain back, a donation of any amount, or just help promoting the site to new visitors would be appreciated. I'm not sure what else could be done.

Sorry about disappearing with no explanation. I had planned to send out a notice on March 6 that the site might disappear temporarily (I was still assuming that I would save the domain name in time, but the site might have been offline until I entered the name servers for my hosting company into the new registrar's system). Unfortunately, I had a long and acrimonious union meeting after work that day, so I was exhausted and just went to bed. Since the domain was registered on March 7, I thought the domain would still be registered until the end of the day on March 7.

[MrFlibble]

So, any news on this?

And BTW, maybe this is a totally stupid idea, but is it possible to contact Google directly and try to have it arranged that the ratings are transferred to the site's new address? After all, it's the site's content that attracts people (an related web searches), not the domain name/address...

[Malvineous]

Unfortunately Google don't deal with things like this - the site's ranking is automatic based on which other sites link to it. So in order to have the rankings tranferred, thousands of *other* websites would need to update their links. It would happen eventually, but it would take years.

I still think there's a case to argue that the registrar acted incorrectly, and if DOSGuy is able to find and contact programmers behind decades old games, I'm sure he'll find the right person to contact to get the .com domain restored!

[DOSGuy]

I'm being told that the domain should be "redeemed" by next Tuesday, though 1&1 hasn't exactly earned my confidence in the past.

[Litude]

Personally I would be very sad to see a site like this go; there's no other website quite like it out there. But paying over eight grand to keep it alive sounds doesn't sound quite right either. Since the provider screwed you over they should be the ones to fix it, but big corporations rarely seem to care about single customers to spend more than just a little effort in fixing the customers' problems...

[MrFlibble]

I'm being told that the domain should be "redeemed" by next Tuesday, though 1&1 hasn't exactly earned my confidence in the past.

We'll be all keeping our fingers crossed on this, right guys? (I really, really hope everything gets back on track!)

Personally I would be very sad to see a site like this go; there's no other website quite like it out there.

Word.

[leilei]

I go to sites by url history habit so I simply updated my HOSTS file to correct the ip for the old domain

[DOSGuy]

Tuesday has come and gone and nothing has happened. 1&1 hasn't responded to the email that I sent 15 hours ago, asking if I should expect anything to happen today. I'll have to phone them tomorrow.

[MrFlibble]

That's a shame, I still hope they have some decency left to help you out after all!

[DOSGuy]

I called 1&1 and was told that "there's a bug in the system that's making it take longer than it should to redeem domains". The agent told me that he was escalating my case to get the domain manually added to my new account, and to wait 24 to 48 hours.

[Malvineous]

Sounds promising! Call back after 24 hours to make sure the story is the same

[MrFlibble]

Hoping for the best here!

[DOSGuy]

Going from bad to worse. The domain has disappeared from my control panel, and 1&1's tech support just sent me a bizarre email asking me where the redemption form is. I faxed it two weeks ago!

[Qbix]

Going from bad to worse. The domain has disappeared from my control panel, and 1&1's tech support just sent me a bizarre email asking me where the redemption form is. I faxed it two weeks ago!

Did they work it out or do you have to wait another week ?