Adventures Of A New URL

What can I say? Whose idea was it to get my own domain anyway? Why mine, of course! Seemed simple enough, as other's have bought their own domain names and I haven't heard any issues from them, why should I be any different? Well, let me tell you, I grew up with a phrase stuck to me that said "Always had to be different, doesn't do things the same as everyone else." Even when I was ill, I didn't get normal illnesses that other children got, I had to be different. I would be the one who ended up in the hospital with some surgery or something.

I have been asked why I want to purchase my own domain name. Most people purchase a domain name as a branding of sorts, it belongs to only them. The domain name says "who they are" and generally will come along with a niche, something that the blogger may be known for, or specialize in. Maybe they blog about a certain nationalities heritage, maybe they blog about teaching children to become interested in genealogy, or maybe the blogger specializes in forms or language, or what about citations? You get the idea, right? 

At this time (could be different in the future however) I don't specialize in a particular area, other than sharing my own trials and tribulations. I would like to have my own URL, if for no other reason than, to say it was mine. It would be nice to know that whenever anyone referred to it, they would be referring to "my" Heritage Happens. 

You may have noticed my blog being inaccessible at times lately. Here's the low down. About a year and a half ago I decided I wanted my own URL and of course I wanted heritagehappens.com. It wasn't available but no one was using it at the time. I learned that the expiration date was December 2011 so I decided to just hang around awhile and see what happened, maybe I would be able to purchase it at that time. Every now and again I would check the URL to make sure it still wasn't being used. Every time I checked it, it wasn't being used.

During Jamboree this year I was introduced to a company where I could buy a URL at a very good price. I explained I was waiting for a specific URL to open up at the end of the year. Upon checking that URL at that specific time, we found it was being used! You can't even imagine my disappointment. It was suggested that I use another URL, like myheritagehappens.com. At this point what else could I do? So, online I went and purchased my URL, myheritagehappens.com, and felt pretty smug about it too! Maybe you noticed I have added, "my" here and there to Heritage Happens already, getting prepped for the blogs move.

It was a month before I had the opportunity to work on moving my blog to my new URL. I followed directions from the new company to get my blog transferred over.  I then put the URL into a web search, and…nothing. It didn't work. Ok, so now what? Well, I went back to Blogger, my current hosting company and read those instructions to make sure I did everything correct at that end, and then played with the new company a bit more and tried a couple of other ideas. Each time, the blog did not move and was unavailable. Out of shear frustration from spending so much time working on this, I gave up that first night thinking that maybe a good night's sleep would make my mind clearer and open to new ideas.

I ended up calling the new company five or six times. I eventually realized that I could get the blog to the new URL ok, however, it continues to come up at blogspot.com also. A couple of people have tried to help me a bit, but this continues to be an issue for me. I have spent a good portion of the past three or four weeks working on this and have finally come to the conclusion to leave my blog at blogspot.com. At this point heritagehappens.com and myheritagehappens.com URLS are no longer available or I would go another route trying to accomplish this. For now, anyway, I give up and this blog will stay put.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts!





Copyright © 2011 By Cheryl Palmer All Rights Reserved

Comments

  1. Oh darn, rats and all that. I must say I do like the changes you have made to your site since I last was here. Love the header photos and the leaves.

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  2. I don't understand your last paragraph when you say myheritagehappens.com is no longer available. It goes to your blog. I just tried it.

    When you're on blogger, you don't actually _move_ your blog, you just route your domain to it.

    Also, did you consider heritagehappens.org, .net, .info, .us?

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  3. I, too, assumed a move to my own domain would be easy when I tried it last month. It wasn't. My blog became unavailable to everyone (even me!) for a few days and it unfortunately coincided with the mention of my blog on Geneabloggers. I found a blogger help page and posted that it had been 3 days and my blog was still unavailable and someone helped me thru the process. I don't remember all the steps of things I tried, but at the end, it turned out the problem was Internet Explorer. When I tried redirecting the blog using Chrome, it went right through. You might want to give that a try. I'm sorry I didnt save a link to the help page.

    Good luck!

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  4. These techie problems are such a headache! Nothing is ever as easy as you think it will be. Good luck!

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  5. Cheryl,

    I see your blog pour on both your Domain and your Blogspot domain.

    The same 4 comments are in both places.

    It looks like its working. It appears that it is a duplication, if that is what you are looking for.

    Lookin' Good.

    Russ

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  6. Michelle, glad you like the changes so far!Thank you!

    Banai, thank you for trying to help! I meant that I wouldn't be able to get that URL from anywhere else if I wanted it, because the URL is spoken for, if it were a problem with the domain site.

    Wendy, I am so happy you got your problems squared away! I wish I could say my issue was Internet Explorer, but I already run on Chrome.

    Tonia, this one has been a migraine! lol Thanks!

    Russ, thank you for the kudos. I suppose maybe what I am looking for isn't realistic. I thought this would show up on my domain page, but not on blogger. In other words, blogger would redirect to the URL.

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  7. I also like the changes to your blog and think I will stay put and learn from others adventures this time. Thanks.

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  8. I like the new look too :-) I have my Wordpress blog and a separate self-hosted one. Setting up the self-hosted one nearly had me taking the axe to my laptop.... Jo

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  9. Thank you Susie and Jo. I actually have a self hosted bog also, and it was a piece of cake to set up, I do not understand why this one is such a problem, ho hum.

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