Wednesday, April 28, 2010

HACKED... sort of.

As most of you know, I updated the URL for this blog a few months ago. When I started My So-Called Life in 2006 I was a novice blogger who had no idea that it probably wasn’t a good idea to have the site address contain my real first and last name. So at the risk of losing loyal followers I posted a warning, waited a week, said a prayer, and switched URLs to something a bit more generic.

I’ve been really happy with the new address and it seems like I’ve somehow been able to retain the majority of my readers. THANK YOU all for sticking with me! Especially Bek from Australia, who sent me the most thoughtful message via Facebook last night...

Bek alerted me that something strange has been going on over at my old URL. Apparently, those who still have my previous site address in their feed readers suddenly began to see postings again… WHICH WERE NOT WRITTEN BY ME. Apparently, “Paul” has obtained my old site address (did I mention that it contains my first and last name?) and is using it to post his “Insurance Thoughts.” Strangely, when I go to the link I can’t see any of the posts, just the headline.

WTF?!

“Paul” has no email address linked to his profile and no information listed other than that he is a male Leo, aged 36, from the Bronx.

I find this whole situation to be a little weird and frankly quite aggravating, because I made the decision to switch URLs specifically because I do not want a site address out there containing my real FIRST and LAST name! I have no idea what to do about this. I used Blogger’s Help feature to report it as a spam blog, but I don't know if that will really accomplish anything.

Ugh, I’m annoyed.

Does anyone have any advice or can you tell me why or how this happened?

6 comments:

Shannon said...

On the Dashboard, you should be able to delete your other blog permanently. I had a couple that I started and never did anything with and was able to delete them. That's creepy...

BTW, Thanks for changing your comments to pop-up! Now I can comment :o)

Sarah Alway said...

Hi Shannon, I'm so glad the comments are working for you! :-) The thing is, I DID delete the blog permanently, but it's like when I did that it made the URL available for other users, and this Paul guy took it! Why he would want a link containing someone else's unique first and last name, I have no idea...

Rachael said...

That's so creepy, Sarah!! I just looked at it. I can't see any posts either. Maybe he realized this one someone else's previous URL and hasn't been using it. On the bright side, he's only had 56 views! Good luck with that!

Rachael said...

I just talked to someone at my work about this who knows lots of things about the internet. He said "robots" run queries all the time of URLs that have just been deleted, then they create new URLs with the same name, in case the previous owner decides they want to buy it back! He said its called "squatting". I guess that makes sense, except in this case the guy didn't even provide any contact info in case you did want to "buy it back".

Sarah Alway said...

Rachael - I had a feeling it was something like that. I guess you really can't ever escape the scammers in the world. Hopefully once enough time passes and they realize that I don't want to buy back the URL they will just delete it.

Anonymous said...

miss your blogging!!---jenny