OT - getting my website back online

[Dave Baker]

Completely OT but maybe someone on here can help. My long standing engine tuning website pumaracing.co.uk was hosted by a friend who for whatever reason has stopped hosting it as well as deciding not to give me back the engine crane I lent him and is generally playing silly buggers and I can't be arsed with him anymore.

I'd like to at least get the engine technical articles back online as a resource for people and because it's easier to point someone on here with a tech problem to an article that already answers it than type it all out again from scratch.

I tried to set up a free Google website and failed miserably. I can't even work out how to upload my old web pages onto it. Old dogs and new tricks maybe.

Either A) can anyone set up this Google website for me with all my tech articles on it?

B)Recommend a better way? Another free website hosting service maybe.

C) Advise on just ditching pumaracing.co.uk for all the hassle involved in trying to get the domain back in my own name and set up something new like Pumaraceengines.co.uk with a new web host.

[mogga]

Are you listed as the owner?

[Fredxx]

Interesting:

the registrant "Readycrest Ltd" is a "UK Individual" which seems slightly contradictory.

[Fredxx]

I would have thought Google would have made things easy, though never used them for hosting or putting together a website.

What format are the current articles in? There are some where it's easy to export HTML.

[Mentalguy2k8]

Too easy perhaps; maybe they're one of these template-style sitebuilders where you just type stuff in, with no provision for uploading ready-made HTML pages.

[Java Jive]

[...]

See below

the domain is hosted by 1and1 and was last renewed this year. I would suggest that you approach 1and1, explain the situation fully (preferably without abusing your former friend unreasonably), and ask if they will let you take over the domain. Given the circumstances, they may refer you back to your friend, but if you keep trying to get a response out of him and failing, then they may allow you to take it over.

It would probably help your case considerably if you have any documentary proof, hardcopy or electronic, that you wrote most or all of the site's contents, and that copyright of its contents is in your name.

AIH, my site is also currently hosted by 1and1, so if you do get control over it, I should be able to help you ftp upload the contents.

[Bob Eager]

Nominet themselves can also be very helpful in these situations.

[The Natural Philosopher]

do you have a fixed IP address at home? If so I might consider punching a hole through the gridwatch firewall and letting you create a site on that machine.

Do you have admin rights to the domain pumaracing.co.uk?

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 11/12/12 17:45, Bob Eager wrote: .

[Fredxx]

How would Dave go about proving anything?

They are helpful, but then they expect their fee for a transfer.

[Jules Richardson]

Wayback seem to have a snapshot from May of 2010:

I don't know how much had changed since then, but that might be useful if you need to try and prove ownership, and at least it means that some of the data is still "out there" even while the usual site is down.

cheers

Jules

[Andy Burns]

Actually google sites are a bit naff, even if you point your own domain at them, you end up with a long horrid URL on their domain displayed in the browser.

[Gordon Henderson]

Firstly, do you have electronic copies of all the data yourself?

If not ... (yea, bolting the door, etc.) then there are online resources

- the wayback engine, google cache, etc. that you might be able to get most of the data back from.

Then there's the domain - If you have proof of ownership (an invoice for the registration, etc.) then you can contact Nominet directly and have then sort it out - preferably by getting them to change the tag and importing it into a new registrar - you have have luck with 1&1 though, but again you'll need to prove ownership in some way.

I'd also try to get in-touch with your ex-friend - even if it's just to ask him to email you a tar/zip file of the data.

But to start again... PAY a company to host it for you. Really do, then they're not friends, but aservice company providing a service which you pay for an expect service from.

That said, (and it's a tiny part of what I do for a living), the margins are small and you get what you pay for. You don't need a virtual server, etc. for a simple website - just a bog-standard service and you should look to be paying somewwhere in the region of £15 a year for the site and no more than the same again for DNS registrations. Yes, there are many cheaper, (and many more expensive!) but at that sort of level, that should get you a slightly better service. So £30 a year or less than a quid a week...

Gordon

[misterroy]

for free hosting set up a dropbox account and host the site there free here is my wife's old website, badly needs updating.

the domain is hosted at easily.co.uk and is redirected to the dropbox file at easily.

[The Other Mike]

By following their dispute procedure.

Establishing who registered and subsequently paid to maintain the domain name, bank accounts in the same name and registrant address details matching those of the legitimate holder are useful - essentially establishing an audit trail

Of course if you had a cash only business, no business bank account, no accounts, got a mate to register the domain, the mate paid for it and you handed over cash and got no receipt or bought him a pint or made payment in something not traceable then you are probably f*cked

and what is wrong with that?

[Owain]

Not if you set it up right, you need to set a CNAME record for www in your domain name server management console.

[Andy Burns]

Been there, done that, still gets redirected to their domain.

[Dave Liquorice]

There are many many registrations like that. Along with similarly obviously commercial domains that have no contact details listed under the "UK Individual" opt out.

Readycrest that's a name I haven't see for a while. Wonder if it's the same company that used to deal with the GT-Power BBS bulletin board software?

Yes the Nominet procedures for regaining control of "your" doamin when the registering company goes AWOL is very simple and quick. You don't even need any co-operation from the absent company but it does cost you =

=A310 IIRC.

I suspect the google sites stuff is all templated and you just type stuf= f into the templates (forms). You might be able to link to files uploaded =

but do you really want google using the stuff you upload? Read thier T&C= s with a very fine toothed comb...

1&1 have been mentioned I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole as they =

are part of the same group as Fasthosts and I've had several bad, and on= going, experiences with Fasthosts over a long period of time. I needed t= o shift my .co.uk recently and chose 123-reg, time will tell but as I'm only buying the domain registration it should be hard to screw up.

Having said that as the domain is currently with 1&1 take a look at thei= r webhosting pacakages. I guess you just need a bit of disc space and connectivity, no "site builder" stuff.

Once you do take over the domain you will probably have to think about how mail for that domain is handled.

[Dave Liquorice]

Still no guarantee that the company won't go bust, quietly stop trading, or just, as what happened to me, become completly incomunicado. The hosting was still up and running mail flowing etc but that was all. The first I knew was when I got an email from the registrar that one of my domains was about to expire as it hadn't been renewed... I'd had no request/reminder from the company and I couldn't get any response from them at all, answering machine permenantly full, nor response to emails or FAXs etc etc.

As hosting services etc are generally bought in advance for a period of time they will stay working for possibly quite a while after the company that paid for them has ceased trading. Eventually the bill will require paying again and when it's not the services will, eventually, stop.

[Huge]

Not Cyberstrider, by any chance?

After a week of silence (and no service) from them, I invoked the "Forced Domain Transfer" process at Nominet and went elsewhere.