moral dilemma

[callivert]

I just won a name at auction. It has a stack of inbounds from trusted sources. It used to belong to a large trusted site. Their webmaster let the domain registration lapse and it was picked up by a domainer, who parked it (with poor configuration, given the nature of the domain).
The original site changed to a different domain name.
Anyway, the domain spent the last couple of years as a parked page, before expiring again, and I pounced.
But now I feel guilty! I even found discussions online about what a tragedy it was when this domain got "hijacked." (that was the word they used).
I have nice, good looking new sites with no PR and very few visitors that could benefit from a bit of traffic and g-juice from this domain. But the good samaritan in me is actually tempted to return it to the original owner.

[simey]

Everybodys got to follow their own moral compass!
I would'nt have any problem with it myself;

"The original site changed to a different domain name." (users can find it by now surely)
"domain spent the last couple of years as a parked page"
(who misses it now?)
You won an auction, other bidders would keep it.
Lastly, this is why you don't let important domains expire.

[oziman]

If people can't keep track of their own domains, that's their problem. I'm not advocating "hijacking" domains or just picking up expired domains to sell them back to the owner who forgot to renew.

If you buy a domain off the drop, the owner has been contacted multiple times already about it. Presumably they realized when they saw the parking page when a domain goes into pending delete mode, that the domain had expired. For whatever reason, they didn't renew it.

Still, do what you feel is right so that you can sleep soundly at night - that's the most important thing. I think morally you're in the clear, but if you don't feel right about it then do what will make you feel better.

Let us know how it works out.

[buckworks]

It sounds as though you obtained the domain name fair and square so you don't have any reason to feel guilty that I can see.

It's always worth listening to your inner Good Samaritan, but don't be too quick to make a gift of the domain unless you're confident that they'd handle it more competently than last time.

The middle ground might be to link to the original site's new location so that users who followed old links could still find it.

If the domain was allowed to expire not once but twice, there's a good chance that Page Rank from the existing links won't be counted. Enjoy whatever traffic you get from the links, but other than that, expect that you'll have to start from scratch to build your own web presence for the domain.

[callivert]

thanks for the advice. I've been thinking: given that the original website has already relocated, they probably wouldn't want to relocate back again anyway. That's just creating even more disruption. I think I'll take the traffic that it brings, and if it adds any PR (which is unlikely, but you never know), then all the better.

[DamianS]

If you want to do salve your conscience, offer it back to the original owners for what you paid , plus an amount to cover your expenses.
Then if they don't want to buy it back, it proves they didn't really need it, since they aren't willing to stump up a reasonable price.