Help With ?Unused? Domain Name

weirdjim

weirdjim

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weirdjim
A very long time ago ('96? '97??) I got the domain www.rst-engr.com and found it was not too memorable. Then I got www.rstengineering.com and have been using that one for the last 20+ years. I want to drop rst-engr but don't want to drop it if something useful is attached to it ... like one of my current email addresses.

How can I find out of rst-engr has any hooks or loops to something useful in my stable?

Thanks,

Jim
 
If you register through Namecheap or something like that you're looking at <$20/yr so why not just keep it?
 
Just park some engineering pron there and see how sniffs it out.
 
Go to your host.
Login and look for email.

It should have a list of email addresses tied to the domain.
Untitled-1.jpg
 
Ravioli said:
If you register through Namecheap or something like that you're looking at <$20/yr so why not just keep it?
Click to expand...
Because I learned a long time ago with KISS and BURP that the less crap you have hanging around a project the less likely you are to have it get you into some trouble.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Go to your host.
Login and look for email.

It should have a list of email addresses tied to the domain.
Click to expand...

I'm not worried about what email is tied to the domain, I just want to be sure that if I choose not to renew it that it isn't going honk up the current domain through some sort of interconnect.'
 
I thought I was the only one with extra domains laying around.

Rich
 
I just KNEW if I asked for help in POI I'd get a simple answer or a complex answer with some pointers I could use :dunno:

Jim
 
weirdjim said:
Because I learned a long time ago with KISS and BURP that the less crap you have hanging around a project the less likely you are to have it get you into some trouble.
Click to expand...
Except if it's close to your branding. United Airlines learned it the hard way when someone snatched "untied.com"
 
I wouldn't drop it. The problem is that every "expired" domain gets swallowed up by some opportunistic domain squatters that will likely route it to a porn site or at least some other useless to your potential customer site. For the $9 or whatever it takes to keep the domain alive either CNAME it to rstengineering.com or point it at an "We moved" dummy page.
 
If there's any chance anyone is still using it, keep it, but do a redirect to your main site.
 
There wouldn’t be any technical reason to keep it, if you don’t have an email, website or any services using it, just the marketing stuff mentioned above.
 
John221us said:
There wouldn’t be any technical reason to keep it, if you don’t have an email, website or any services using it, just the marketing stuff mentioned above.
Click to expand...
but how can I be sure that somehow rst-engr.com isn't somehow required for the domain www.rstengineering.com. I don't see a tie with my ISP but I have no idea how the former IIT guru that worked the switchover didn't somehow tie the two together. All the mailboxes that are accessed by rst-engr.com are redirected to rstengineering.com but I don't see a tie between the two. I'd like to be sure of that before I abandon the old domain

Jim
 
weirdjim said:
but how can I be sure that somehow rst-engr.com isn't somehow required for the domain www.rstengineering.com. I don't see a tie with my ISP but I have no idea how the former IIT guru that worked the switchover didn't somehow tie the two together. All the mailboxes that are accessed by rst-engr.com are redirected to rstengineering.com but I don't see a tie between the two. I'd like to be sure of that before I abandon the old domain

Jim
Click to expand...
Hi Jim,
I am not sure what the "tie" would be, unless you used an email address off the old domain as your contact email for the newer domain, but you said you didn't have an email on that domain. If I do a DNS lookup against the old domain, I only see one record, an A record for @ (root) that points to the IP address 74.208.236.4. There are no email records or any other records, so it appears that the only service attached to it is a web site. There is a web site that has a fairly current copyright (2017) for your company on that domain. It looks like the exact same website that the newer domain points to. My assessment is that the only risk of getting rid of it is that there are people that know your web site by the older domain (maybe through a google search) and bookmarked it. What you probably want to do as a precaution, is change the behavior, when someone clicks on that web site to do a URL re-write or redirect to the newer name, that way they land on the newer domain name and not the old one and if they bookmark it, then they will be bookmarking the newer name. Put an announcement on your site that you will be retiring the older name in one year and then re-up for one more year.
 
weirdjim said:
but how can I be sure that somehow rst-engr.com isn't somehow required for the domain www.rstengineering.com. I don't see a tie with my ISP but I have no idea how the former IIT guru that worked the switchover didn't somehow tie the two together. All the mailboxes that are accessed by rst-engr.com are redirected to rstengineering.com but I don't see a tie between the two. I'd like to be sure of that before I abandon the old domain

Jim
Click to expand...

It costs < $9.00 / year to register a name on Namesilo. I'd move it over and properly park and redirect it to the domain you're keeping. It takes like a minute.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
It costs < $9.00 / year to register a name on Namesilo. I'd move it over and properly park and redirect it to the domain you're keeping. It takes like a minute.

Rich
Click to expand...
Did that, worked perfectly. Thanks for your help, Rich ...

Jim
 
John221us said:
Hi Jim,
You still need to have it redirect to www.rstengineering.com. It is still going to www.rst-engr.com.
John
Click to expand...

If it's Apache, in .htaccess on rstengineering.com:

Code: 
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} rst-engr.com$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} www.rst-engr.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.rstengineering.com/$1 [R=301]

should fix that.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
If it's Apache, in .htaccess on rstengineering.com:

Code: 
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} rst-engr.com$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} www.rst-engr.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.rstengineering.com/$1 [R=301]

should fix that.

Rich
Click to expand...
Drop the last rule. His site doesn't support https. It looks like the cart just takes you to Paypal and leaves the domain.
 
John221us said:
Drop the last rule. His site doesn't support https. It looks like the cart just takes you to Paypal and leaves the domain.
Click to expand...

Ah, okay. I'm so used to cPanel planting SSL certs on every site that I forgot.

So

Code: 
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} rst-engr.com$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} www.rst-engr.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.rstengineering.com/$1 [R=301]

Rich
 
flyingron said:
I wouldn't drop it. The problem is that every "expired" domain gets swallowed up by some opportunistic domain squatters that will likely route it to a porn site or at least some other useless to your potential customer site. For the $9 or whatever it takes to keep the domain alive either CNAME it to rstengineering.com or point it at an "We moved" dummy page.
Click to expand...

I get emails now and then from people who want to know if I want to buy a URL, or a bunch of URLs. If I even reply, it's "No, thanks."
 
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