content at nolaamericorps.org not mine

  • Unknown's avatar
    nolaamericorps · Member ·

    Hi there,

    I’m not sure, but it looks like our site was hacked. The content is not ours and I’m not sure how to get our content back or what I should do. Please advise if possible – the content is R-rated, which is not good for our audience to see!

    Thanks,
    Whitney

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    galois · Member ·

    nolaamericorps.org is hosted by Colo4
    http://www.whoishostingthis.com/?q=nolaamericorps.org

    Sorry but you are in the wrong forum.
    This forum is only for blogs/sites hosted by WordPress.com

    WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG are completely separate and different http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

    And you should ask in the WordPress.org forum.
    http://wordpress.org/support/

  • Unknown's avatar
    nolaamericorps · Member ·

    Thank you galois, I appreciate your answer. However, I am an amateur and created my site through wordpress.com and purchased the URL through there as well. I have never hosted it on my own.

    A few months ago the url expired and it took awhile for our group to renew it. In that span of time, I’m assuming someone else took it. However, if that was the case, wouldn’t wordpress indicate to me that it was no longer available? It let me purchase the renewal.

    I am probably missing something. But the bottom line is that I created the content in wordpress.com, purchased the url to point to our content and now it doesn’t… the content is still all there in the backend. Is there something I can do to get the url to point back to my wordpress site is my question, I believe.

    Sorry for the long reply and I do really appreciate the help.

  • Unknown's avatar
    auxclass · Member ·

    There are two parts that make a custom domain name work at WordPress.COM

    Domain Registration & Domain Mapping –

    It looks like the Domain Registration was allowed to expire and another person bought your old domain – nolaamericorps.org

    You probably renewed the Domain Mapping for nolaamericorps.org

    You can remove the domain mapping and make the contents visible on the internet at //nolaamericorps.wordpress.com/

    Not renewing domain name registration can have serious problems as you see

    I will flag this for staff attention – they should be able to help you reset your site to be visible on the internet and refund the domain mapping that you are no long needing

    Sometimes a squatter will buy a domain name and hold it hostage for a lot of money – if you do try and buy the domain name back – make sure you use a reputable escrow agent to make sure you get what you pay for

    some friends had their name stolen from them – they ended up with a new domain name as the thief wanted a lot of money – they are trying to get the FBI internet fraud folks involved

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    @nolaamericorps

    I’m afraid @auxclass summarised the situation perfectly.

    At around 40 days after a domain expires the registrar puts it up on auction, and our records show that your domain was indeed bought by someone else at that time.

    The upgrade you bought in early November was only a domain mapping upgrade, and not a full domain registration. All the mapping does is to connect the domain to your WordPress.com site, but it doesn’t give you ownership of the domain.

    I have cancelled and refunded the domain mapping upgrade for you, as that will only help you if you own the actual domain as well.

    I see the current owner’s contact details are listed in the public WhoIs information for the domain. You can always try contacting them to try and get your domain back, but as @auxclass also points out, with domain squatters this might be more trouble than the domain is worth.

    Let me know if you have any more questions about this.

  • Unknown's avatar
    nolaamericorps · Member ·

    Thank you all so much – I could kick myself for letting it expire. I appreciate the refund and will work on the rest.

    thanks again!

  • Unknown's avatar
    auxclass · Member ·

    You are welcome – sorry not better news

    @kokkieh – so they are letting you out of the back room? Welcome back from the black hole

    A note of expired domains – a domain that has been in use for a while has two values based on it’s history – fake traffic for a while from the old links and search engines – and the chance that the old owner just goofed and will want to buy the domain back at a premium

    I got my current domain some years back when I think the original owner forgot they had registered it – could not find that they ever used the name for anything in the 10 years they owned it – the registrar just let it expire out the back and I got it for regular cost – but now there is an entire industry devoted to picking up expired names or holding other names hostage on speculation (I saw one name being squatted on – the town is an obscure town – population of maybe 100 people – and the squatters wanted $1,500 for the name if my memory is correct)

    Good luck with your site

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    @auxclass

    I’m not back permanently, but I’ll be here for my first few weeks. It’s good to be back :D

    @nolaamericorps

    I’m also sorry it couldn’t be better news. I suggest you see if you can get a similar domain name, perhaps using .com instead of .org, for example.

  • The topic ‘content at nolaamericorps.org not mine’ is closed to new replies.