AUGUSTA - When is your name not your name? When it is a domain name on the Internet.
When a good portion of city commercial revenue relies on tourism, having the right information available to the public is crucial. Internet connections are a big part of many city and tourism communication systems. Losing that link can be devastating.
Augusta city government and tourism got a kick in the pants when people started calling about a problem with its Web site.
Web searchers were confused to find a bevy of generic business locations, not even in Kentucky, at the Internet address that had been the official Web site for the Kentucky town, www.augustakentucky.com. It had linked searchers with the Kentucky river town for the past two years.
City government offices eventually discovered the problem and immediately tried to correct it.
"We first noticed when our e-mail stopped working," said Augusta City Clerk Gretchen England. "When we called to find out what the problem was we found out that the domain name had expired."
With a little searching, the name was located at an on-line domain auction site.
"We were the only bidder, yet every time we bid it would immediately say we were out bid. Who else would want Augusta, Kentucky but us?" said England.
Ultimately, England found out that the domain name had a winning bid of $750.
"I do not know who ended up with it, but it wasn't us; we never bid that high." said England.
England recreated the history of the Web site domain name, as best she could recall.
Augusta's official Web site and domain name was created when Vicki Bogucki was in office as tourism director. A private credit card may have been used to establish the account for the domain name. For whatever reason, the information on continued payment to maintain the domain name was not directed to the city or tourism office, said England.
"Whatever the reason, we have a new domain name and everything should get back to normal shortly," said Phil Weber, director of Augusta Tourism.
Searching for information on Augusta, in Bracken County, now has to be all lower case and include the abbreviation for Kentucky, http://www.augustaky.com. |
(Source: NamePros, Maysville-online.com)
Repeat after me, Scarlett: "As God is my witness, I'll never lose a domain again" :P.
Hope that doesn't happen to me. I only have fifty-... domains (lol, I don't know the exact number, I can't even remember more than 20 of them), but I won't let them drop like that. |