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Recent Press I’ve Received
Posted under Local News, Welcome by judyoMany of my friends and family have seen me in the press recently. Because of all that has happened I will now be reformatting this site to be the blog it originally was supposed to be. The first website I ever created was called Oak Lawn Real Estate since I live in Oak Lawn Illinois and my prior company was located in Oak Lawn. So I thought I’d “stay in the neighborhood” with my first attempt at having an Internet presence.
I learned how to create a site and after two years if you typed in “Oak Lawn real estate” in Google or MSN or Yahoo I was in one of the top 2 positions with my Oak Lawn Real Estate website. This site was created at a particular web host and I purchased the above url, or domain, through that host.
My site went down in December so I called my host. They couldn’t figure out what the problem was. It went back on-line so I thought things were fixed. It went down again in January and I called my host again. After a couple of days they told me the domain name had expired and I would need to renew plus pay a penalty. I was angry that they didn’t tell me this back in January since they did have this information. So I paid the fee and penalty and figured everything would be OK.
My web host called me back the next day with the bad news. Someone else had purchased my domain name! I had written about my woes in a popular real estate forum and it attracted the attention of a reporter from the Wall Street Journal who did a piece on it. Of course, the article didn’t come out completely correct but it got to the point of how there are companies out there waiting to scoop up a good domain name that has good search engine position.
Funny thing is, the guy that owns the company that purchased my expired domain name works out of his parent’s home in Orland Park. Supposedly, he owns thousands of domain names. What he does is either sell them back to the original owner (he wanted $2,500 from me) or he puts ads on them & receives revenue any time someone clicks on the ads. So for a while my Oak Lawn Real Estate site was simply a page full of advertising links.
After the Wall Street Journal article came out I was receiving contacts from people that had read it. Then there was an article in the Daily Southtown although it was very condensed and really didn’t paint the true story. The article in the Sun Times was even worse. They both made it look like I was at fault for “forgetting” to renew my domain name. Nothing was mentioned about my web host having that information but not passing it on to me until it was too late. So I sent an e-mail to both papers asking them to set the record straight. I will be interviewing with a reporter from the Daily Southtown this week.
I was also contacted by WGN radio who did a story segment on the events this past Monday. They interviewed the gentleman who purchased my domain and I was able to explain things a bit, too. My husband recorded it.
I have another website with a completely different host, Cook County Real Estate. The owner of the company that created my Cook County website, Morgan Carey, who owns Real Estate Webmasters, sent me an e-mail on Monday night telling me that he called the Orland Park gentleman and bought back my domain name for me! He also told me he would provide me with a new website and hosting services. I couldn’t believe it! He actually had to pay this guy $1,288 to get back a domain name that should have cost $8.95.
I have been a member of Morgan’s real estate forum for quite some time now and have learned a lot there. It is for real estate agents plus buyers and sellers of real estate so please feel free to visit and even join if you’d like. I was just made a moderator of the forum because I have brought in so many new members.
So there is a happy ending to the unfortunate event that occurred to me. Although damage has been done in the search engines since I lost my domain, I am hoping to get it back in top position as soon as possible. Also, the original web host that didn’t tell me about my expired domain until it was too late has implemented a new feature to notifiy their members once they log-in to their websites of any domains that will be expiring. One of those things that gets done only after something bad happens.
Because I’ve had a different site on this domain name of http://www.oak-lawn-il.com/, I will keep it going as a local blog for the area. This will be for more than just Oak Lawn. It will be for all surrounding southwest suburbs including Chicago Ridge, Bridgeview, Burbank, Evergreen Park, Garden Homes, Hickory Hills, Hometown, Justice, Nottingham Park, Palos Hills, Palos Heights, Palos Park and Worth.
I want to introduce people, places and things to do in the area. I want this to be interactive. If you own a company or can recommend a service or restaurant or anything else in the area please write and let me know.
Hopefully, in a short while, my original (but improved) site will be back up and running. Thanks for visiting and bookmark this blog so you can come back and keep up with area news and entertainment.