Famous Bloggers is Back!

July 30, 2012 - Last Modified: April 1, 2014 by Hesham Zebida 7,816

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you probably already know that FamousBloggers.net’s domain name was stolen from my GoDaddy account. After four long days of pain. Finally, FamousBloggers is up and running, thanks to God and the great blogging community, without your support; this story would have been written in a completely different scenario, and the hard work we put together to build this site could become history.

Domain name theft is not new, it happens everyday, crackers are out there hunting domains and blackmailing site owners.

What Happened?

According to GoDaddy, the domain thief hacked my GoDaddy account, he logged in and did a transfer to two of my domains names to another registrar Active Registrar Inc.

Right after that, he sent me an email telling me he purchased my domain names, and he is offering them for sale, he asked for 999 USD for both. (so basically this is a blackmail).

I have exactly 31 domain names with GoDaddy, the strange thing is I found out that only two domain names was stolen FamousBloggers.net and ThesisAwesome.com, so it appears that the domain thief picked only my valuable domains and left the rest. He also didn’t change anything in my account at all. However, I didn’t get any email notification of domain transfer, which doesn’t make sense, and also GoDaddy can’t explain it, which lead me to think the same way Gerald Weber pointed out on his comment (Is it possible that this thief has someone on the indside of Godaddy helping him make the stealing of domains easier?) which also keep me wondering… Is GoDaddy’s the two-step authentication safe?

How he got my account password?

I am not sure, and I really don’t know! But I can say that no one hacked my Gmail email as the account activities show, I just think that my GoDaddy’s password wasn’t strong enough. So, I admit it, I am sharing part of the responsibility.

Also, I use to Sucuri.net to monitor my hosting and DNS changes on almost all my sites, but for some reason I didn’t check their latest warnings, maybe because JectPack plugin (which I am installing on my blogs) do a lot of changes to their scripts and this leaded to several email notifications by Sucuri, so I just didn’t pay attentions to these notifications in the last coupe of months. (my bad)

Now, let me tell you how I actually got my sites up and running in only 4 days, and got a deal with Active Registrar Inc. (the gainer registrar) to request a reverse of domain transfer back to my account.

How I got my Domain Names Back

I’ve got a lot of requests from my friends and fellow bloggers to tell what I did exactly to bring back my domain names so quick, so I will try to make it short and straight to the point, hofully the steps I’ve taken could help someone out there, and save them some time!

Here is the steps I did when I first heard that someone else is taking over my domain names:

I called my domain registrar by phone, which was GoDaddy and reported to them.
They asked me to file a Request for Dispute on Transfer Away.
I started to read about other domain stolen cases. Make sure you read this ICANN page.
I took the whole story to the public, published about it, and share it everywhere!
I asked my friends for help, advice and spread my story.
I was reading and studding every single advice was given to me in comments & social media.
I reported to the FBI (fbi.gov)
I filed a dispute to Active Registrar Inc.
I report abuse to dnsadmin@afraid.org (free DNS service that my domain names was pointing).
I kept updating my post with hourly break down of events. (I almost didn’t sleep for 4 days)

Documents I needed I provide to Active Registrar Inc.

Scanned copy of my valid driver license and ID.
Copies of domain purchase orders and payment proof.
Emails that were sent to me from the domain thief.

Things that helped me to speed up the process

I sent a link to my blog post to all involved parties to show them how serious this community is.
The social media buzz (an average of a tweet/10 minutes was made to @GoDaddy from my fellows)
FBI report was a good idea (maybe they can put the thief behind bars)

Just for the records

GoDaddy failed in reaching Active Registrar Inc. on their first attempt, Active Registrar Inc. have told me they received only one dispute request from GoDaddy.

This could cause a tragedy!

Anyways, when GoDaddy told me they have to wait for 5 days to heard back from Active Registrar Inc. I decided to contact Active Registrar Inc. by myself because I am not stupid to wait for 5 days, plus I can’t play the waiting game for 5 days!

That’s why I felt that GoDaddy’s staff are way far from being professionals in solving such problems, at least this is what shows in my case.

Special thanks to everyone who supported me!

To everyone who supported me in this hard time, I really can’t thank you All enough, I know who you are, without you I couldn’t make it!

Thanks to all those who provided me with honest and helpful advice.

I couldn’t hold back my tears when I saw your comments, tweet, shares.. pushing and encouraging me to continue my fight!

You are just amazing… Amazing!

Special thanks to Active Registrar Inc.

I can’t thank enough the team over Active Registrar Inc. for their understanding, timely respond, and effective decisions.

In 24 hours the domain names was suspended!
In 48 my domain names was pointing to the correct DNS.
And, a domain transfer reverse was placed!

Read the full story and hourly breakdown of events.

How my Business and Sites were affected?

It seems that 4 days down time is not that bad, but I can tell that my online business was affected so badly in the last 4 days when my domains was stolen and sites were down, I can’t afford to have my sites down for 4 days, this is too much time, really!

Speaking about Business…

By looking to my income reports, I estimated my loss to something around $1600, needless to speak about the lost opportunity and those deals I were working on with some partners (which I’ve already lost).

How this affected my site traffic and rankings? Is it coming back?

I can clearly see that Google dropped a huge percentage of indexed pages during the last 4 days, this wasn’t good because FamousBloggers.net gets more than 50% of its traffic from search. So, this is a huge traffic loss.

Here is a screenshot of FamousBloggers stats today (Monday, July 30, 2012):

FamousBloggers has exactly 1,233 posts at the time of writing this post. It’s hard to tell at this point if traffic is coming back or not, I see that Google started to re-index the dropped posts again, but now I am not sure if the boots will reach deeper and re-index them all back.

Speaking about rankings, I see clearly that I’ve lost almost all my best ranking posts and reviews, which will affect my income in the coming couple of months or so, I hope it won’t be a big loss.

My PayPal account is on hold!

I Just got off of phone call with PayPal, I just found out that my account has been under attack, so PayPal locked it so quickly. They’ve told me that someone did several failed trying to login to my account, so the system locked it till I can verify it. And guess what?! Even the customer service can’t verify my account!

PayPal customer service told me that: It looks like your account was on hold at the maximum security, so the only way to verify your account is phone call verification which can be done through a land line. (who still have one of these?!)

Now, I am forced to apply for a land line to verify my PayPal account. I called ComCast and ordered the land line, but appointment is set for next Friday, what a nightmare!

The results is I won’t be able to pay any affiliate commissions for ThesisAwesome.com affiliates till I solve my PayPal issues and remove the account hold! (thanks to the cracker)

Is GoDaddy Secure?

The short answer is “Yes”, how? simply because they have two-step authentication, which was not enabled in my account that time when my account hacked, and probably that’s why the domain thief (the Cracker) was able to hack my GoDaddy account and figure out my password.

Why I will Move From GoDaddy?

Note: What you are about to read below is only my personal opinion based on my bad experience with GoDaddy.

I will move my domains and cancel my hosting account with GoDaddy for several reasons, the most important reason is they didn’t really help me out getting my domain names back, yes they did what they can, what that wasn’t good enough!

If you follow my story, you will see clearly that GoDaddy:

Didn’t protect me as a client!
Didn’t show any responsibility!
Didn’t take a quick action (I was much faster than them)
They fail in making the first dispute reach Active Registrar Inc.
Complicated things (they work officially but unprofessionally)
Didn’t respond to my request to provide required data to Active Registrar Inc.
Was about to delay the whole thing for months.
They were “almost” about to take it personal (because Active Registrar Inc ignored their late request).
They were the last who knows that I got my domains back! (Really?!)

Here is some other reasons why I will move from GoDaddy for good:

1- Their support sucks

I’ve been with GoDaddy enough to tell that their support really sucks compared to other web hosting companies.

FYI, I have worked with HostGator and BlueHost a lot in the last couple of years, and I am able to solve 90% of my clients’ issues without having an access to their hosting accounts. How?

I contact their support, I tell them about the problem, they simply respond and solve it! (It’s not a rocket since, it’s business)

Dealing with GoDaddy’s support team is a different story, NOT all the team members are qualified to provide a proper support for clients, if you are lucky enough you will make it from the first phone call, but in most cases it takes more than one phone call to solve a simple problem.

2- Almost 100% of GoDaddy’s employee can’t make decisions or take actions

You see, in our speedy world, I think companies tend to give more power to their employee and encourage them to make business decisions and take quick actions. The age of hiring dumb people who just made to be followers ended a long time ago! Now, companies seeks people who solve problems.

Personally, I never met someone at GoDaddy who can take a decision towards the client’s business or provide a good solution for a problem, I met only with those who give excuses, apologize a lot, and say “they can’t do anything about it”.

3- Their marketing guys make me feel sick!

Once I got contacted by email from one of GoDaddy’s marketing managers, he mentioned an exclusive discount for FamousBloggers’ readers, and try to convincing me to work with them on the affiliate program to promote GoDaddy’s domain names. I decided to discuss with him because I like to give discounts and free stuff for FamousBloggers’ friends and readers, and because he promised me a big exclusive discount especially for domain names.

I thought this will be easy because he is the one who contacted me, so he must give me a good offer. Needless to say, our discussing took more than two weeks of ping pong emails because each time I sent him an email, he reply to me that he have discuss with his manager and get back to me (WTF? I thought he is a manager from the title in his email signature)

Latter, I discovered that he was offering me the same discount that GoDaddy give to all affiliates. So, I told him if you can’t get me in the exclusive discount coupons for domain names then we better end this discussion. What a time waste!

Why you offer me something that you can’t give?

4- Too much upsells and tons of promotions hit you on the face.

Yes, they can give you good domain prices, but it’s insanely crazy how they designed the checkout process, how many times you have to say “NO” to the stuff they push on your way just to simply checkout and leave?!

Also, it’s well known that when you search available domain names in GoDaddy today, in some cases you just find them unavailable in the next day, you will be surprised that you have to pay extra to get those specific domain names. Some people think that GoDaddy do a trick to charge you more money to get those domains you were looking for. This happened with me, and also to other people who I know.

5- They suspend your hosting for whatever reason!

Basically because their shared hosting is one of the worst ever, and of course because shared hosts has 100 to 200 sites on the same server, you could easily get hurt by any bad code on any of those sites who share same space. When problems happen you will discover that you must to take off your shirt to get GoDaddy’s attention!

At the end all what you get from GoDaddy is: “This is not our responsibility“!

Where I will host my domain names?

I won’t put my domain names in one account anymore, I will probably have more than one registrar, I am between NameCheap, and Active Registrar Inc. (Let me know which domain registrar you recommend, I am hearing you).

Soon, I will transfer my domains away from GoDaddy.

Who shared the story?

A few of my fellow bloggers shared the story of my stolen domain names, and provided great advice and tips for blog owners to help them secure their domain names, web hosting, and their valuable business. I am so thankful!

Famous Bloggers Founder Loses Domain Names – SmallBizTrends.com
Blog Stolen from GoDaddy Account – JustinGermino.com
Think Before Buying or Hosting your Domain on GoDaddy! – PratikDholakiya.com
Is GoDaddy still secure? – ToStartBlogging.com
Protect your Domain Name From Low Life Thieves – LetsBuildWebsites.com
Stolen Domains: A Horror Story of Being Hacked – ITPixie.com
A Shout out for FamousBloggers – IBlogZone.com
How to Increase Domain Name Security : Avoid Domain Theft – WPHostingDiscount.com
Domain Theft: Is Your Domain Name Safe from Hackers? – BloggingTips.com
FamousBloggers.net is Stolen – PRLInternetMarketing.com
Hacked Account – Lawmacs.com
Enable 2-Step Authentication on GoDaddy to Protect your Domains – TechWalls.com
Domain “Famousbloggers.net” Hijacked Over The Weekend – NetProEarnings.com
@hishaman @FamousBloggers Net Nightmare Over! – Dave-Lucas.blogspot.com
One Man’s Fight for his Stolen Domains – HajraKvetches.com
How To Make a Better Password – VinnyOhare.com
The 10 Things You Need to Know to Secure Your WordPress Site – ManageWP.com

The story was shared and mentioned through social media extensively, I imagine the reach went to more than a Million people who knew about this story (because I can’t really calculate it), but here is a quick reach stats based on TweetReach.

So, that’s only Twitter, I can’t measure other social networks, private shares, emails, word of mouth… etc.

What I’ve earned!

You see, I now believe in the blogging community more than ever, it doesn’t matter what I’ve lost, really! Because what I’ve won and eared is much much more!

I just can’t explain it with words, only my tears can tell, it’s more than love!

Stay safe.. and.. a BIG…

About Hesham Zebida

Follow @hishaman

I create websites with WordPress, and I develop Schema Plugins to help SEOs. I am a social network lover. I am also the night creature who works hard to keep this project up. Owner and founder of the Famous Blog.

{ 88 Responses }

Christopher Hofman says:

Great to hear that you got your domain names back. It's not every domain dispute which ends happily. I really feel that registrars should take more responsibility in educating their clients. Here are three steps that they should follow in your case to avoid that it happens again: 1) The registrar could send you frequent emails to remind you to update your PW and recommend what makes a PW strong 2) Send a text file with the WHOIS data for your 31 domains, so you can check that the admin email is one that you control for all these domains. 3) NEVER give away an AUTH to anyone else than the registrant's email. In a recent case GoDaddy passed the AUTH on the phone to a former employee. I recently did an article about expiring .pl domains which show that registrants give up domain names which allow hackers to access their confidential data...and in the end could steal your domain name.
harris says:

I got hacked too, But when I fill out dispute on transfer away form it says The following errors occurred while submitting the form:"my domain name" : is not a domain at Go Daddy What should I do ? Please help
Ram says:

Nice post. No one can take away the hard work you have put into this Famous Blog.
Shorya Bist says:

Hi Hesham Zebida, I just came to this post by some link but here i got a shock to know that famousbloggers.net was hacked.I never knew that this can happen now i will take measures from beginning.Its realy pathetic ,but thanks for sharing your experience over it which might help alot of bloggers Thank You Shorya BIst From Youthofest
Sam Hayman says:

Anyone that uses Godaddy is a fool. Its clear there is someone on the inside that's involved. They're probably a keyword competitor as well. You really should issue legal proceedings against them for damages. You may be able to start a class action lawsuit as there seems to be a lot of this going on at Godaddy
Annabel Candy says:

That's terrible. It sounds as if you hosted with Go Daddy. I use them all the time and recommend them to people who want to buy domain names but not so sure about that now. So glad you're back in action:)
Thu Nguyen says:

So awesome to have you back Hesham! I can imagine all your worries but by the power of the blogosphere, your sites are ones we can't lose. Horror stories like these are also ones I like to take note of NOT because of the experience, but because these are true steps which we all have to take to secure our online business. Even though it's not brick and mortar, the communication element which you've had to relayed shows that there's still a lot of work which needs to be done. Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us but most importantly keeping hope alive. Your inspiration is relentless. -Thu
Thomas says:

No one can take away the hard work you have put into this Famous Blog. You are here to stay and forever will.
Navin says:

Thank God Hesham, you got your domain back. Your experience teaches a lesson to bloggers like us. Thanks for sharing and warming about your views on GoDaddy.
Gautam Doddamani says:

i had already read your article on your personal blog itself hesham but dropped by here to express my thoughts. its great that you got your blog restored...i personally think godaddy isn't a great hosting service (even for domain registering)..its only for the showbusiness. i had recommend active registrar and namecheap which are both equally good domain registrars. best of luck in blogging...this article helped me a lot...i will bookmark it in case unfortunate things happen to me. thanks and keep rockin! :-)
Gera says:

Hi Hesham, I'm so happy that your sites are back!! :) What a nightmare all the process. I never liked GoDaddy for domains and worst as host. I don’t like their combos like want a bigger fries, check it here, more stuff add there…annoying. I use NameCheap, is a clear interface and without upsells. Hope you can get back your Paypal account soon and I'm sure that your ranking in Google will return in next re-indexes. I bet that you'll take off the aff link to GoDaddy near the footer ;) Take a break and sleep, you deserve it!! Have a great weekend :) Cheers, Gera
Melody McKinnon says:

I am so happy for you! I just went to check on you on Facebook to see how you were coping with the loss and I couldn't believe the news. I'm glad to be offering you a happiness hug instead of a sympathy hug. Good for you! Thanks for sharing the experience from start to finish. Many people don't realize just how easily it can happen.
- Melody McKinnon says:
  
  Oh and I've used Dotster for over a decade with no problems. I've also sold a domain through them with no problems. Very secure with a free 'Lock Domain' feature and privacy options. I'd rather pay a couple of bucks more for peace of mind.
  - Dave Zan says:
    
    Thanks also for sharing your experience with Dotster. Stay with them as long as they deliver on what you expect, and they're also reachable in Twitter if ever.
JDIZM says:

Glad to hear you got your domains back. -1 for GoDaddy customer support. I bet the tweeting annoyed them =]
Chris says:

Hi Hesham, great you are back! It shows professionalism of Active Registrar Inc. and something else from GoDaddy... BR, Chris
Kostas says:

Nice to be back Hesham, I had read at your personal blog what has happened to your domains and I couldn't believe it, Godaddy really sucks, I was hosting my blog there until recently and you just have to wish no problem to happen to you cause if something goes wrong you have to wait for a long time and when they manage to answer you, their answer is not helpful at all. Anyway hope this domain thieft will pay for his crime, probably they could find him through the email he sent you to blackmail you or somehow else. Then a lawsuit to him and compensation of a few tens thousands of dollars for the damage he has caused could turn this problem to a profitable deal :)
Glen says:

Hesham, This is a good and very detailed story. Good thing you got the domain name back. This is not something that we all expect most especially if we're running websites that are working well in the last N years. What a night mare! This just only show that if you do get products from a not-so-good company like GoDaddy, you get not so great services. There are actually a lot of web solutions company that gives you close to their prices, sometimes free, but the quality of support is awesome! Best and more power!
Gerald Weber says:

Hesham, You are sooooo right about Godaddy. Not only does their support suck, but any time I've bought a domain name they BOMBARD you with extra offers on the way to the check out. Soooo annoying man. I use Name Cheap. As their name implies they are relatively inexpensive. Their interface is simple and easy to use and their support is good. Nuff said.
bbrian017 says:

Hesham, I'm thankful to know everything is back as it should be and that was in pretty fast time as well. Now we can get back to what's most important, that's blogging :)
Anton Koekemoer says:

Hi Hesham, Welcome back! Hope everything has been sorted with your Hosting provider etc. There has been quite a large number of hacks reported over the last couple of months - this is quite scary and a good wake up call to a lot of webmasters to revise their security options. Thanks for sharing the experience.
Rahul Kashyap says:

congratulation @Hesham Zebida you come back plz now be careful :) today me elated :)
Mahesh Verma says:

thanks @famousbloggers you come beak. i was visited your site last 2 day finally you back hurry now plz give me more information about blogging i am know to blogging :)
chandan says:

Hi Hesham, congrats for get back your domains and it is also good idea for you to leave godaddy now. Best of luck to you.
Bui Diep says:

Dear Hesham Zebida Thank you for sharing your experience about this case, it very clear and helpful for domainers and bloggers like me. Congratulations your famousbloggers.net is back. I think alot about my domains at Godaddy Registrar now, do hope that their service will better....Thanks alot for your experience post, I am sure it is big lessons about \\\"Protect Domain Name\\\"
Picas says:

It seems that GD workers like zombies and they dont care clients with small portfolio ...after this case maybe a big move from GD to another registrar happen again ???
Naser says:

Good to hear that you got your domain back. Thanks for sharing your experience with GoDaddy. I was thinking to register a domain name on GoDaddy but I think I should go for HostGator now. Hope you don't encounter any future problems like this......
Astro Gremlin says:

Holy mackerel, Hesham! What a nightmare. Thanks for sharing your story, and sharing your candid assessment of GoDaddy. I have several domain names registered there!
Justin Mazza says:

Glad to hear you were able to resolve this Hesham. I was following your saga on Google +.Customer service is and always will be what makes or breaks a business.
- Main Uddin says:
  
  Hesham Zebida @ thanks the Almighty Allah who hears your hard working.Personally your story was shared with us Mairaj Pirzada in a FB group and this story links given by another famous blogger Ileane Smith.How thanks for the long analysis and passion of crisis time.
Ritesh Sanap says:

exactly same thing too happened to me 2years ago, my domain name was transferred to limedomains, without any messages of transfer or anything, the sucker, totally changed my site and then started to advertise for selling it.
Fran says:

Hi Hesham, I am so relieved that your agony is over and you have published this post for every one\'s knowledge. Thank you for being so considerate and providing all it took you to get it. it is helpful to know that it was your own effort that worked. I never thought of domain stealing before. Keep up the good work and enjoy your domains. Famousbloggers, is a pillar for the blogging community and stealing of this domain would have been a great loss to the community as well. Any how this isbehind you now, you have your domain and the community have it\\\'s pillar. Everything worked out. Be happy and go on with your jouney :-)
Kevin Pagarigan says:

Great job on getting your domains back! Sometimes you can't rely on anyone else but yourself. I've never liked GoDaddy to begin with and this just confirms how bad their customer service are. I still have one domain left under GoDaddy. I'm definitely transferring soon!!!
James says:

Hesham, Congrats on getting your domains back. After talking with you, I am seriously thinking about leaving GoDaddy as well. But I just renewed my domains last month so I don't want to pay up again for a transfer. Thanks for the detailed article on how you got your domains back. I am adding your article to my bookmarks for later use :)
Lani says:

Aloha.. gosh I'm glad to read you got your site back and things some what in order. what a nightmare and you would think the original company who issues us the domain names should be fully in charge and it doesn't seem that way. This is my first time hearing about your story and thanks to Ileane Smith, for sharing it on her fb, so here I am. Of course, I had to share this on my other social sites, you never know who might be going through the same situation and you have a solution here. I truly appreciate all that you have shared here and what steps to take in case we fall into a predicament as this, I hope it upon no one. I hope Godaddy find your situation important and correct it and make it known to all buyers about the 2 step authentication. I just read this today, their top guy resigned. Again, I am glad I came by and thanks for sharing! Mahalo, Lani :)
- Rahul says:
  
  Correct Lani, I host my websites in DreamHost, I am also thinking of whether DreamHost people are sufficient to handle these kind of Hackers, they dont have 2 Step authentication :(
Jules Webb says:

Wow, what a story! Thanks for sharing all the gruesome details. I was really impressed by Active Registrar, and I hadn't heard of Sucuri before. I don't use GoDaddy myself, and after reading your experience with them I don't see any reason to. I'm so glad that you were able to resolve this, and all things considered, in record time. RE: Paypal - I use the send my mobile a PIN verification along with the regular un and pw login. Are you saying that you didn't have this set up, OR you were using this type of verification and you still got locked out? I'm curious because like you I don't have a "HM" phone and am wondering what additional steps can be taken to prevent this. NOTE: I use http://keepass.info/ to organize and manage all the account access information. It has it's own pw generator built in so you can create secure pw on the fly. It's simple, free, and worth checking out---I love it.
JamesW says:

It's really bad what happened to you Hesham, and it's good that you solved it and managed to do it really fast. I don't think that many of us wouldn't manage to do it like you did and to react so smart. Thank you for sharing your experience with us, lets make sure that we all make some better security measures. And I'm sure that your traffic will become even better. thanks for sharing
Mark says:

This is awesome Hesham! Way to stick it to those criminals! You have won one for all of us! I am sure this "recovery tutorial" will do well in the SERPs. I predict that FamousBloggers will emerge even stronger than it was before from this massive exposure. Here's to keepin' it real, brother...:) Mark
Justin Germino says:

Glad you got your sites back and good luck on your move, I hate GoDaddy and I am working with a client now to fix up 31 blogs, 11 which had been hacked with javascript malware injected into the SQL posts and the core files. I love Bluehost, but they don't have a 2 factor strong authentication for account security, which is something I told them they should add, so a secure and very difficult password is required (they do enforce some of the strongest passwords mandatory though).
Trung Nguyen says:

Congrats for getting your domains name from the hacker, I think we all have learned some lessons from your story, Hesham. Keep up your goog job.
Kimbery says:

Welcome back! I was so annoyed and mesmerized by this story and I appreciate the constant updates. I immediately transferred a domain from GoDaddy after hearing your story. Kimberly
Paul Salmon says:

It is great to see that you got your domains back and everything seems to be back online. I'm sure it won't be long before your traffic returns to previous levels. It is a real eye opener about the risks of security that we run while doing business online. I have looked into GoDaddy's two-step authentication, and it appears to only work with those based in the U.S. It would be much more effective if they had other two-step options like using Google Authenticator. This experience has gotten me thinking about also transferring my domains from GoDaddy as well.
Sreejesh says:

Congrats Hesham! Feels really good to hear you got your domains back. Your story is a lesson to bloggers about cyber security and the odd experience with Godaddy.. I'm considering to move all my domains from Godaddy soon. Let this never happen to anyone again.
Bird Deterrent says:

Good to have you back Hasham! Hopefully we can all learn from this and be better prepared to protect our websites from such attacks.
rossumiati says:

Dear Hesham, it is really great to hear you solved your very huge problem back there, I read it all, terrible days that you've been through. My condolences for all of your losses, money and other things that may be unattainable, hard time i suppose. I hope you can earn a very good success in future. I might learn a lot from your experience and other who are also experience this problem, this is very important. Congratulation for you to having back your domains. Regards
Sahil says:

Glad to see Famous Bloggers up and running! A lesson to all bloggers out there who are unfamiliar with Domain hijacking. Congratulation once again!
Mashhour says:

Congratulations to you, Hisham I watched your successes for years and admire so much about what you achieved. In all honesty I have annoyed a lot of what happened to you. This tragedy revealed to me that you have a wonderful trait in your personality, Is that in the midst of your suffering, we learn a lot from you You are a wonderful man and I wish you more success
FreedomJackson says:

Woah. Glad to see your stronger than the haters Hesham. I have been very frustrated with Godaddy last week also. I had a spike in traffic that caused 404 errors and they tried to up sell me to another server instead of providing any information as to what was causing the spike. It seemed like they wanted me to "trust them" I'm like WHAT! It's crazy. I am so thankful that you decided to share this story do you know how many people you prevented from having the same situation? Just changed my godaddy PW to crazy encrypted. PS Waiting on the HOW TO XFER FROM GODADDY POST.
Stafan says:

2-Factor Authentication for wins every day. I feel suspicious when I am not asked to telesign into my account by way of 2FA, it just feels as if they are not offering my sites enough protection.
Anita Campbell says:

Hi Hesham, Glad to hear it worked out in the end! Although you clearly had some scary moments.... Thanks for the great writeup -- it will be valuable for anyone else who may find himself or herself in the same situation. - Anita
Mohamed Osam says:

what a great article Hesham. Thanks for sharing, it sure was a wild ride the past few days. I am glad we were able to share and bounce the ideas over the phone and sure happy that you finally were able to get your domain back. As much happy I am though, as much disappointed I am from GoDaddy, IMHO, I believe they should have been more responsive to your case, I cannot imagine with today's dynamic world of Internet and Social Media, a large company like GoDaddy is still thinking with such a 10-years backward mentality.. Just absolutely disappointing. Mo
Donna Knutt says:

Hesham, I'm so happy everything worked out (and especially in the timeframe that it did)! Leave it up the Godaddy and you'd probably still be stuck! I've heard about Godaddy's less than favorable customer service and antics, and have experienced it first hand. I think you're making a smart move. More importantly though, thanks for sharing this - you're saving lots of people time, tears, and money! I'm interested in who you eventually choose; I've been looking for a new home for my sites and some of my clients, so please let me know.
Dave Zan says:

Hey Hesham, glad to see you got your domain names back. I actually commented this on your other blog. I finally published what I "promised" to write about on this subject: http://davezan.com/3-ways-your-domain-name-can-be-stolen.html HTH somehow.
Ammar Ali says:

Way to Go! Finally you got your domains back. :) Congrats buddy!
MaAnna says:

Hesham, so glad that you were able to recover your domains!! Thank you so much for listing all the steps you went through. I'll be sharing this post with my followers so that they can take steps to avoid the same issue.
Ahmed Safwan says:

Congrats man for your blog return. I only want to tell you that hostgator is the best, and I shared why in my post. I asked Allah many times to help you return your blog and WOW you got it again. I hope you stay safe with your new registrar. Stay Cool!
Srini says:

Happy that you got back your domain name. It ll be of great help if you say about how to transfer away from Godaddy.
Dave Lucas says:

Hesham! I'm very happy for you that you were able to get your domains back - yes, we bloggers made a lot of noise about this! There is one warning I issued in one of my posts that perhaps you missed: I know you are proud of your work, but you and other bloggers put yourselves in harm's way by publishing posts that detail how much money you earn with your blog and from where. There is no government transparency law, and you might as well post your social security and bank account numbers on your blog. There are schnooks who trawl google searching for "Blog earnings report" - they are looking for an email address along with other clues to a way "in" to your paypal and other accounts. The individual who took your domains probably elected to do that after finding out he couldn't break into your paypal or find another way of stealing your money. I'm not lecturing you, Hesham, I have always thought it was NOT a good practice to publish income reports on blogs ... (I think it was that Shoemoney character who started this nonsense when he posted his big Google Adsense check on his blog... Monkey see, monkey do, Monkey blew up on you!) He might be a hotsy-totsy blogger, but I wouldn't copy anything he does! What you DON'T know, Hesham, is that I have recently gone through a similar internet dilemma, so I more than sympathize and empathize - when I got to your paragraph above about PayPal I almost fell off my chair! Same thing happened to me a while back and it really hurt to have my funds all tied up over some Stupid s**t! I would contact both the domain hosting companies you listed above and email them the links to your story and ask them about security issues. And if they think YOUR GOOD WORDS will bring a few customers their way, they might give you a discount in exchange for placing ads on your blogs - you never know - and it never hurts to share and ask! Good Luck in the future! Peaceful Blessings!
Suroor Wijdan says:

Thats an inspiring story altogether. I am quite surprised the way GoDaddy failed to solve the dispute and i think i will also consider moving my domains from there. Thanks for this post , it will help many who are caught in domain theft.
Sai Kumar says:

Congrats Hesham on getting your domain names back. Hearing lot of complaints regarding godaddy. So its better to transfer a domain from godaddy to other best and secured register.
komal says:

Congratulations Hesham for getting your domains back. Well, finally this nightmare has gone & great to see you back too! Hope these things wont happen again…
Amar says:

Really Glad to see this post. Congratulations Hesham for getting both domains back. Now, i'm in great dilemma. My domains are too from godaddy. I'm going to enable 2 step verification. Congrats again
Enstine Muki says:

Wao! Looks like this has turned out to be a sweet story. sincerely, I'm impressed how bloggers rallied behind Hesham to kick the bad guy by his ass. This is a good pointer to the togetherness and oneness that exist within bloggers. Congrats, brother
Rob Cubbon says:

I was out yesterday and I have only just heard the good news! I'm, of course, over-the-moon. Delighted for you, Hesham, and, actually, many good things have come of this: 1. The "cracker" didn't get a penny – let's hope they get caught! 2. You have educated the community about domain security (I didn't know about GoDaddy's two-step authentication and have enabled it on my account) 3. You leaving GoDaddy. If I was you, I'd leave GoDaddy. And you make your reasons for leaving abundantly clear. This will get back to those high up in GoDaddy and things may improve for others in the future. All's well that ends well. But I really don't want to see anyone going through what you went through these last few days.
Ileane says:

Hesham, this is just an amazing story. Both the good and the bad are valuable lessons for all of us. I'm really proud of how our fellow bloggers came together and it was as if we could all feel your pain. The evil-doers will perish in the end and I really believe that with all my heart. Cheers!
Bharat says:

Congrats Hesham on getting back your domain names. It would be better if you transfer your domains to NameCheap or NameSilo, both of them are really great domain registrars. Hope these things wont happen again...
saad naeem says:

Thumbs up Hesham! Really it should be recorded as your biggest achievement , you are true blogger who cares for his work! Really happy for you :)
DiTesco says:

Way to go Bro.. This story IMO made you stronger and more determined. You made things happen, even in the worst of your days. I am just glad you got this sorted out and you are right about "spreading" out the risk of your domain names. I use Dynadot and DirectNic for years and have been very happy with their service. Dynadot is my favorite.. They are really good, because they are just registrars.. That is their core business . Welcome back!
Pratik Dholakiya says:

Thanks for sharing full coverage here as well :) It's your humbleness that you've written positive words for GoDaddy in a section and I'm pleased to read the points that you have written about moving your domains and hosting from GoDaddy. If they cannot be positive then it's better to use some other reliable source. I'll write another post on your success story :) I hope you don't mind.
Minesh Rai says:

Hi Hesham, Congrats for being back!!!!!!!!!!!. Definitely a tough time back. The process u have given to get back the domain is very useful to us, as such type of situation can be faced by any one in future. As I have never used Godaddy, hence no comments...., but my question is that, can our password be leaked from the registrar who sells the domain or hosting, if yes, then how can we protect our online assets. BIG QUESTION......
David says:

Hesham, we did missed your blog for quite a long time & very happy to see that you are back in action. I always make this thing for sure to keep strong passwords with 32bit encryption in it. I also try to obtain passwords through LastPass which stores it safely in vaults as well as provides me minute updates in Pro section with any minor change too. Well, finally this nightmare has gone & great to see you back too! :)
Andrew Bailey says:

bravo mate, you didn't rest until you got what was rightfully yours. glad you're back up and running!
sanjay says:

Glad you have it back, finally! I am using namecheap and I have no problems with them, also a lot of my friends are using it too. Hopefully these crackers will stop stealing. Happy for you man!
Jack says:

Congratulations Hesham for getting your domains back, Now put a prime focus on security as much as possible. GoDaddy sucks and always has. Remember when Mike Filsaime was shut down from a single spam report. Anyways its nice to see you back, thanks for sharing the details along with the steps you took.
Asif says:

Glad that you got your domian names back. And a very detailed post which is going to help many people is considering to be serious about keeping their business safe from some random hackers. Congratulations once again.
Tuan says:

I'm very glad to see your comeback, Hesham. I also lost my site and GoDaddy support can't help me anything. It is quite disappointing for a big company like that. By the way, I'm wondering how you could get your domain back in case the thief push your domains to another Godaddy account. Who can help you then?
- Dave Zan says:
  
  Truth is, only yourself. Your registrar can only do so much, but they'll at least try.
Kristi Hines says:

Glad your domains are back, but terrible news about your Paypal. I just had someone try to hack into my Amazon, Apple, Ebay, LinkedIn, and other accounts. Fortunately my passwords were all very different on those sites, so the most they got out of it was disabling my accounts due to too many failed login attempts. I hope whoever is after you will eventually give up (or get arrested, sued, etc.).
Amit Chahar says:

Congratulations Hesham for getting your domains back. I'm really happy for you. :) GoDaddy really sucks. They are always on the wrong side of the table. First, they supported SOPA. Bad customer service. And many other issues. I never liked them. Go with Namecheap or dynadot.
Amit Shaw says:

Congratulation Hesham for getting your domain Back. Now Increase your security Level as much as possible. I think GoDaddy Two Step Verifciation is not for India, Only for USA Right? BTW Cheers. Amit
Rahul kuntala says:

I'm glad that you got them back! I'd suggest you to go for NameCheap. As few of my domains are under the same site for a long time now! And their support is really better (exactly opp. to GoDaddy!). I hope you'll use strong passwords at least from no on ;)
Mitz Pantic says:

I am so happy to see you back Hesham!!! Your website is very important to the blogging world. !!! I hope they get that guy because he needs to be punished! I really thought you were not going to say anything about Godaddy and now that I know how you feel I agree all the way.. I personally have had some awful dealings with them, including the closure of my hosting because the renewal email went to the wrong address. And this is now why I promote Hostgator as they have solved 100% of my problems and even ones that had nothing to do with them! I also had a domain name stolen (from Godaddy) and the funny thing was, the next day the site was populated with targeted content selling products. It was like they had planned this. This is why I register my names somewhere else now too!! Good to see you back!!! :)
Harleena Singh says:

Nice to have you back Hesham! I did read about it on Facebook and wasn't able to open the site past few days, and learnt through your blog about the problems going on. I am glad everything is resolved, which I was sure you would manage. :)
Brian Hawkins says:

Hi Hesham, I was so glad to see your domains were back up. I never closed Famous Bloggers, I left it open in a tab hoping to see it load each time I booted up. GoDaddy sucks and always has. Remember when Mike Filsaime was shut down from a single spam report? I can't stand moving through a dozen sales pages just to register a domain. Anyway, it's great to have you back. I knew you would get your domains back, I just didn't know it would be so fast. Thanks for sharing the details along with the steps you took.
Dev says:

Congratulations Hesham :). So glad to see you got the domains back. Godaddy official sucks! I never used them and I don't think I'm going to use them ever. Better go with namecheap. They are much much better then Godaddy.
Salah Messaoud says:

Hey Hesham, I am really glad you got your domain names back and your business is alive, I hope everyone reads this will learn a lesson and protect themselves. I would really freak out if this happens to me my website is like my baby.
Alan Tay says:

Congratulations for getting your domain names back. I hope that this will be a lesson to all the bloggers out there that we should protect our website property at all cost!

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