Ghost of an old website. WHY! HOW!

August 5, 2015 6:41 AM

A domain that I once owned expired, years ago. When it did, I deleted the folder, and all the files within it, on my hosting plan that said domain pointed to. Someone else has bought the site, and instead of a new site, my old site is on it!

I sometimes visit the many domains I've owned and let expire over the past 20 years, just to see if someone else bought any of them and if so, what they are being used for--sort of like visiting old friends in a way. I did this yesterday, and to my surprise, one of my domains that expired years and years ago has my old site on it.

The way I have sites is this. I have one hosting account, and when I buy a new domain, I point it to a folder on that account. So let's say my site is hello.org, and my main hosting account is hi.com. I send hello.org to hi.com/public_html/hello. That is what I did with the domain and website in question.

However, when I took this site down, (again, YEARS AGO), I didn't merely let the domain expire, I also deleted the folder to which the domain pointed--so this can't really be an issue of the nameservers pointing to the wrong place and calling up my files, since my files are no longer on my server. I checked. They really are gone.

Normally, I would just be amused by this, but I actually don't want this site on the internet anymore. That is why I deleted the files and let the domain expire. It's nothing salacious--it's an old, defunct literary magazine I had in my early 20s and it's just mildly embarrassing, and my full name is on it, and some friends-who-worked-on-it-with-me have their full names on it, and I know for a fact at least some of them would prefer not to be googled and have this come up.

I did a whois for the domain, and found this. Apparently, a person in Ukraine bought the domain.


Domain Name: [redacted, because i don't want people to see it!]
Registry Domain ID: 1938344699_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Update Date: 2015-06-13T18:25:45Z
Creation Date: 2015-06-13T18:25:45Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2016-06-13T18:25:45Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [e-mail]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: [phone]
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Andrej Dmitruk
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: Pershotravneva 63
Registrant City: Logvin
Registrant State/Province: Ukraine
Registrant Postal Code: 09321
Registrant Country: Ukraine
Registrant Phone: [phone]
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: [e-mail]
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: Andrej Dmitruk
Admin Organization:
Admin Street: Pershotravneva 63
Admin City: Logvin
Admin State/Province: Ukraine
Admin Postal Code: 09321
Admin Country: Ukraine
Admin Phone: [phone]
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: [e-mail]
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: Andrej Dmitruk
Tech Organization:
Tech Street: Pershotravneva 63
Tech City: Logvin
Tech State/Province: Ukraine
Tech Postal Code: 09321
Tech Country: Ukraine
Tech Phone: [phone]
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: [e-mail]
Name Server: NS1.FRIENDDNS.RU
Name Server: NS2.FRIENDDNS.RU
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2015-08-05T13:00:00Z

I am just so confused. I don't understand why someone would do this? It was not a popular or especially interesting site, so I don't know why someone would, I don't know, save all the files from it six years ago, thinking that someday it would be gone, and then years later, buy the domain and upload all the files just to be the guy who is the webmaster of the site of a very small defunct literary magazine?

I also don't see how this could have happened accidentally, seeing as though this person bought the domain years after I let it expire AND deleted all the files. It just doesn't make sense.

Can someone shed some light on this for me? And also let me know what steps I can take to get it taken down?

posted by millipede to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

I think the first thing I would do is contact Godaddy and tell them that the site is infringing on your copyright. The Copyright Act of 1976 states that you get copyright protection as soon as the work is published, including on a computer.
posted by Huck500 at 7:02 AM on August 5, 2015 [11 favorites]

They may have gotten your content off the Wayback Machine or some similar archive.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:10 AM on August 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

Are they running ads on the site? If so, contact the ad network and tell them what's going on.
posted by popcassady at 7:12 AM on August 5, 2015

Response by poster: They are not running ads on the site. The site is exactly as it was when it was mine. I also hesitate to believe they grabbed the site, page by page, off the wayback machine. That would have taken a really long time, and for what? It's not a one page site. It has many, many pages. They are all there. It is as though someone copied the entire folder--the structure is still there.
posted by millipede at 7:14 AM on August 5, 2015

I also hesitate to believe they grabbed the site, page by page, off the wayback machine. That would have taken a really long time, and for what? I

1) That process can easily be automated
2) It might be done to make the site look legit to Google before it's turned into a linkfarm/spam/ad site.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:19 AM on August 5, 2015 [16 favorites]

Do you have a clean copy of your old files? It could be worthwhile to grab a copy of the files as currently served by the fake site and run a diff to see if they messed with them in any way.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:58 AM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm guessing the old site had some Google ranking, possibly just as a side effect of having been around for a while, and they are looking to use that by linking to other less well ranked websites.

If you don't have a backup of the old site, I would scrape everything thats there for reference, and then issue a DMCA takedown to the web host. It has your name all over it so this should be pretty straightforward.
posted by Lanark at 8:34 AM on August 5, 2015

Have you checked the Wayback Machine to see if the old site is in there? In the end this (you don't want that site on the internet any longer) may be a moot point.

I've given up, long ago, asking "Why would someone do this, on the internet?" You just can't reverse engineer an answer for that.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:43 AM on August 5, 2015

Response by poster: It is (or at least some pages are; I haven't checked every single page) is archived in the wayback machine. I'm okay with that and that does not make my desire to not have the site up moot. Google does not return search results from the wayback machine. I'm not concerned that the four or five people who even recall this magazine existing will go to the wayback machine and look for it. I'm concerned about search results.
posted by millipede at 10:01 AM on August 5, 2015

I would look into the copyright issue. This person stole your website, whatever their reasoning or means. And not that it matters for this, but you can have stuff removed from the Wayback Machine.
posted by AppleTurnover at 10:52 AM on August 5, 2015

Contact Google to tell them about this infringement of your copyright. The site can be removed from all of their search results.
posted by artistic verisimilitude at 1:00 PM on August 5, 2015