OK, long story I'll try to keep short... 5 months before my last renewal my web host called up and said I had a mandatory server upgrade that was going to require a 3 year committment. I went along. Well, it's 6 months before renewal time again and suddenly "your account has been hacked by a pornographer out of Turkey and we had to suspend it" requiring another 3 year commitment to a new server, with no possibility of giving me server space just for the remainder of the duration of my existing contract.

Ain't gonna happen. The host's company name is GISOL.COM and googling them it appears this is pretty standard procedure with them.

At this point I have no ability to access my 9 year old website (wanna-dive-kona.com). I have put the site up at another very similarly named URL (just removed 2 hyphens). I don't believe there's any way to do a 301 redirect because I can't access the original site to get the code onto it.

I've got good placement on search terms I want, but everything goes to that old "suspended" site. Is there any way to keep my google ranking and get them to make the switch to the new domain, or at least get rid of all references to the old domain? I'd be happy with just turning off the old domain and then rebuilding my ranking and placement - in this day and age that "account suspended" page looks like an out of business page when it's not.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Steve

repoint the DNS and rehost it. You DO NOT need the "original site" to redirect, just the DNS.

And nine years of accumulated links and assorted value is NOT something to be thrown away

OK, a bit over my head. I wouldn't know where to start. Other problem... I don't own the domain name. When I first started back in '00 I was even more clueless than now. I looked at a bunch of top 10 host lists... CNET, etc, and these guys name came up. Part of their deal is they'd "help you set up your domain".. well I paid for it all those years, but when they set it up they put themselves as owner. A big part of their scam apparently is offering to sell you back your domain at a crazy price.

1) Can I repoint the DNS? 2) If so, where do I look to get some information as to how to do it?

Thanks,

Steve

Basically you have no hope if you are not the registered owner of the hostname.

Two choices really.

1/
Move on and learn by the experience and where ever possible have the links you know about or can find, changed to point to the new hostname. If you have a mailing list or membership system contact them and inform them of the change.
Then start a promotional campaign.

2/
If you can contact them have the hostname transferred to where you have registered your new hostname.

I kinda figured option number 1 was it. The other company will do zip for me. I do suspect they'll contact me, probably around May, to try to sell me my domain. By then I should be well on my way of turning it around. Luckily I own all my new domains.

If there's any way of speeding up google on de-indexing the original URL I'll be happy to listen.

Aloha and thanks,

Steve

Without DNS access there is nothing at all you can do to affect it quickly.

report them to the bbb.