Holy panic, Batman.I think I've been hacked!
Published on March 18, 2016
Published on Wealthy Affiliate — a platform for building real online businesses with modern training and AI.
It's March 16th and I went from being on page 1 of the Big 3 to disappearing off the face of the internet.
Not being able to log onto my site on any device, I immediately went into panic mode thinking someone hacked into my site and stole it. I emailed a friend asking if she could access my site...nothing, zilch. It's like Table 38 never existed. In Live Chat I asked if anyone else was experiencing a problem, got no response so I submitted a support ticket and sat back and waited. My eyes filled with tears, couldn't eat dinner and just thought that the worst scenario had taken place...remember what happened to the wicked witch of the West when Dorothy spilled water on her? I thought of who I knew that may be able to tell me what happened.
By this time support responded stating my domain had expired with Namecheap on the 16th and to contact them. Shawn responded with even more help. He not only knew what happened but he told me exactly what to do to renew it and gave me a link to use. Namecheap was great and I had a support person assigned to me via their live chat.
By the time I went to bed - all was fixed and my site was back right where it belonged.
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So what happened?
I've only been with WA since March 16th, 2015 so I'm still a "grasshopper"...a newbie. Shortly after purchasing my domain from Namecheap, I changed my email address to one more conducive and totally designated to my site. So, unbeknownst to me, Namecheap expiration notices went to my old email and I never received them. Hey...I'm new here, guys, and I guess I assumed that these things rolled over automatically, kind of like our monthly or annual WA fees. I'm sure all you "old timers" are smirking and rolling your eyes...and yes, I did learn a lesson. But shouldn't there be a checklist of certain things we, as newbies, need to know to maintain our sites so nothing slips through the cracks and to insure this sort of thing doesn't happen? It's very scary.
So, yesterday morning I woke up bright and early and the first thing I did was to check and make sure my site was still here and breathing...sigh of relief.
Thank you support staff and special thanks to Shawn...you're a lifesaver and I'm very appreciative.
Until next time,
Karen
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