Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that on Friday, wineanorak.com took on a rather different look - instead of the normal site and blog, a holding page from network solutions.

I was greeted by that first thing in the dawn, as I logged on before heading off for a family celebration in Somerset. I froze. Something was clearly very wrong. What had happened is that the domain had expired, considering it hadn’t been renewed. When I started the site in November 1999, my thereupon hosting provider, Global World Wide Web, registered and administered the domain on my behalf. As Global was bought, and next the company that bought it was bought (by Pipex), the domain continued to be administered and renewed on my behalf. But when I was shifted within Pipex to one of their many subsiduary companies, Web Fusion, the administration of the domain fell within the cracks.

Thus no one bothered to reply to

domain renewal notices, and so the first thing I knew of that was when the domain had disappeared. that prompted 2.5 hours of frantic phone calls. Network Solutions wouldn’t let me renew the domain, considering it was purchased by my hosting company. Web Fusion said there was nothing they could do. Pipex said it wasn’t really their problem, but were quite apologetic - although I was left nowhere nearer actually renewing the domain. It was an appalling situation.

Still, it’s now back up, although there’s a bit more negotiation needed to bring final resolution. When your primary business is online, a domain is an incredibly valuable part of your business. Wineanorak.com may not be worth all that much to someone else, but it is worth a very great deal to me, and the prospect of losing it, or having the site down for a significant duration, is a frightening one.

Original post by Jamie