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ISP mapped random domain names to my live site

  • Thread starter Thread starter gergiusz
  • Start date Start date

gergiusz

Guest
Hi,

I've had a VPS with 123 reg and it turned out a few days ago that there are domain names mapped onto my site on their nameservers.

I tried to contact them, but they don't seem to be bothered about the issue and after 2 days the domains are still pointing to my sites.

This is my original site:
www.jaharvester.org

These are the ones I have found so far
http://www.numberplatedirectory.co.uk/
http://www.thetonerservice.com/

According to the WHOIS information the second one is on their DNS server, still they haven't made any actions. I followed the editor's advice to phone the owner, but couldn't get hold of anyone.
 
There isn't a lot you can do. Anyone can point their domain at any IP address..
You could block the website from appearing on the host names using apache / iis config? This will stop google indexing the same content on the wrong domain names.

I have some random domains unrelated to me that seem to point at some of my server IPs.

btw.. Your original site isn't resolving for me!
[12:26:35] DNS Lookup result for query "www.jaharvester.org"
[12:26:35] Error: Dns query failed

Tom - www.mouselike.org
 
I'll just copy in my email to you so that everybody else knows where we're up to.

The problem you describe isn't one I've heard of before, at least not in the way you describe. I assume you have a shared hosting account? In situations like that it's not uncommon for web hosts to place several other customer domains on to the same server IP address, although they're usually split and re-directed to separate customer accounts / web space.

If those extra domains aren't yours, and I can see no reason why 123 would deliberately park them on your web space, then it sounds like either your account has been abused somehow (unlikely) or 123 have made a mistake in their routing. Others in our community may be able to help more.

Also in the whois data for thetonerservice.com I found this. Might be worth giving them a call to find out if they know anything. I suspect they might not be too happy to learn that their domain is going to your site too.

Administrative Domain Name:Daniel Dove
Administrative Company:The Toner Service
Administrative Address:The Toner Service
Administrative Fax:

Ultimately this is a problem for 123-reg to solve (at least it is if those unwatched domains are controlled by them) but there are some things that you could try to mitigate it. For example, if your webspace is apache/linux based rather than Microsoft then you could try adding this at the top of your root .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.jaharvester\.org [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.jaharvester.org/$1 [L,R=301]

This should re-write requests for domains that go to your webspace on to jaharvester.org and will tell Google not to treat the others as duplicates and to instead consider them perma redirects. I'm not 100% sure if this will work in your situation but give it a try and if it does then that should help.
 
Last edited:
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There isn't a lot you can do. Anyone can point their domain at any IP address..
You could block the website from appearing on the host names using apache / iis config? This will stop google indexing the same content on the wrong domain names.

I have some random domains unrelated to me that seem to point at some of my server IPs.

btw.. Your original site isn't resolving for me!
[12:26:35] DNS Lookup result for query "www.jaharvester.org"
[12:26:35] Error: Dns query failed

Tom - www.mouselike.org

Hi, thanks for the reply.

it's actually a type-o
www.jharvester.org

Tried to add this into .htaccess (there was only a rule for caninizing the ur to www... I uncommented it)

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.jharvester\.org [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.jharvester.org/$1 [L,R=301]

But it is still accessible under those domain.

Many thanks for the help guys... ( I amdit I never thought of that I can block these domain names myself - But that's what your host's support is supposed to be for no?)
 
Sorry for self answering:

@Tom

I misinterpreted your advice and I happily confirm that your solution works as you described. As it rewrite everything into www.jharvester.org.

In the meantime another someone from the support team stepped in:

...

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 19th September 2012. (For the records my original request was on 18.9.2012)

I have now moved the two offending domains, away from your VPS to our parking page. It appears these were old domains, left over as the IP address was recycled and was not done maliciously.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards

XXXX
123reg

This is clearly a joke >:O

Guys many thanks again for the advice you gave me :)))))
 
Glad it's resolved and you know how to correct things should it happen with any other domains (with less co-operative hosting companies) in the future :D

Tom - www.mouselike.org
 
No problem, weird web hosting problems can crop up all the time and are often a nightmare to handle. Even experts often have frequent headaches over such things :) . I already lost count of the amount of problems that ISPreview.co.uk has had to deal with this year.
 
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