Our URL hijacked and trashed - A Warning to Webmasters

URL was hijacked by third party -- what to do?

[webadmin]

Our specialty site, on which considerable time and money was spent, had the URL temporarily 'grabbed' by a third party [we have since had the URL returned to us -- but this took several weeks].

During the time this URL was 'grabbed' traffic was redirected -- apparently to dozens, or possibly hundreds or more, of questionable sites.

Our site, which is listed with OD, and which had high rankings [in the top few on the first page] with all search engines [including GOOGLE], now appears to have been dropped from the search engines for the terms it should legitimately be referenced for.

However, it receives a huge amount of traffic directed from spurious links, all links that have nothing to do with the content, some of them legitimate sites, many of them highly questionable sites.

Has anyone had a similar problem?

Does anyone have a suggestion?

The irony is that users are deprived of the site content, while we pay for copious bandwidth directed by sites which should not even be referencing our site.

[Quinn]

Did your domain expire? Or was your DNS otherwise exploited?

[mosley700]

A few businesses make a living from grabbing domain names, but it's usually your own fault for allowing it to expire.

[jatar_k]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com] webadmin

I am also wondering how exactly they got control of it?

During the time...traffic was redirected

This sounds like they redirected your traffic but then later it sounds as though they redirected spam traffic to your site which you still get. I assume the latter.

I think you may need to, either, make an appeal and see what happens (time consuming) or get a new url.

[rcjordan]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, webadmin.

>we pay

Get rid of the useless traffic with htaccess [webmasterworld.com]

[webadmin]

Thank-you for the suggestion of getting a new URL, but given the substantial investment in the existing site, it isn't feasible.

In terms of 'how it happened', we are still investigating. I would suggest that you become intimately familiar with your own registrar's policies.

In terms of the helpful comment 'its your own fault', I would suggest that there is a popular misconception that the ability to register or obtain registration of a URL confers a right to do what you would like. A URL is a 'marker' and signpost -- it confers no underlying intellectual property rights. When someone redirects traffic, however they did so, they are conducting an actionable tort.

The concern at the present time is how to clean up the mess created by a third party who redirected traffic, and how to re-establish search engine ranking so Internet users interested in the information can be directed to it.

Thankyou.

[mosley700]

I didn't mean to be un-helpful with that comment. It just bothers me that some people are so, well, un-organized that they let their domain names lapse. I asked a fellow to sell me his domain, because he wasn't using it to anyone's advantage, and he asked for a silly amount of money ( $1,500). I passed on it and went about my business. Checked back a couple months later and the domain had just expired. Didn't grab it, tho. ("Do unto others" and all that...)

Try going to ConcreteMart.com
That one used to be an actual site. Now you get preached to about every Americans God given right to cyber-squat.