Rue Plumet

Just to warn you, this is kind of a geeky story, because only certain kinds of people get obsessed with obtaining particular domain names. You’ll understand what I mean by the end of this. :-)

When I first started this website, I knew that I wanted to call my blog “Rue Plumet”, and I really wanted the domain name rueplumet.com. I had been trying to get rueplumet.com since I was in college, but it had never been available. So I ended up settling for 55rueplumet.com instead. Click here to find out why I wanted these domains in the first place.

Rueplumet.com used to be a Les Miserables fan site many years ago, and then the original owner let the name go and it was picked up by one of those people that takes domain names that previously had a reasonable amount of traffic and then just puts up a single page plastered with links and ads. I tried to get the domain name at the time it changed hands way back then, but I wasn’t fast enough because I tried to register it by hand, but the guy used one of the automated services that tries to register expiring domains for you. After that experience, I kept the domain name on “order” at all four major automated services on the off chance that it would ever become available again. Anyway, that’s the state the domain was in when I first set up my site. I emailed the owner several times offering to purchase the domain from him, but they didn’t really seem interested.

About a year and a half ago, I did my periodic check of the rueplumet.com domain name just to see what it’s status was, and I noticed that it was about to expire. I waited patiently for the expiration date to come around, and the domain still had not been renewed. Once it actually expired, I was pretty excited. It went into the “redemption period”, which is the standard 30-45 window where the owner has a last chance to renew the domain before it goes back out to the pool of available names. I checked on the domain every week or so during the redemption period, and towards the very end, the owner renewed the domain. I was pretty disappointed because I thought I was really going to have a chance to get it.

Several months ago the domain was nearing its expiration date again (domain registrations are done on a yearly basis). Since the owner had paid an extra penalty fee to get the domain out of redemption only one year earlier, I expected the domain to be renewed. But it wasn’t and once again it went into redemption. I didn’t really get my hopes up this time because a year ago it had gone into redemption and ended up getting renewed again anyway. But I still kept an eye on it, and as the end of the redemption period neared, I would give Joy frequent updates regarding the status of my “dream” domain name, to the point where I think she was getting a little tired of it. The redemption period finally ended and the domain went into the registry holding period. I double-checked all of my “orders” with the automated systems and everything looked good to go. On the day when the domain was released back to the registry, I must have checked my email a thousand times hoping to get a message from one of the automated systems that they had secured the domain for me. And the message finally came! After all these years, I had the domain name. I was super excited to say the least.

The automated system ended up getting the registration for me through some crazy site in Europe that didn’t really have a web page, and didn’t really offer much tech support in English, so things were sketchy there for a little bit. Once you register a domain name, you have to wait 60 days before you can transfer it to another registrar. So I patiently waited the 60 days so that I could transfer the domain from the crazy European guys to my “normal” registrar where I could actually configure things in English to get the domain going. Well, this past weekend, the transfer finally went through, so now the domain is mine and it is also registered with my normal place where I can actually use the administration functions in English. So you can now get to this blog using both rueplumet.com and 55rueplumet.com - either of them should work correctly.

As of right now, 55rueplumet.com is still the main address and rueplumet.com forwards to it. I’m still trying to decide which I want to be the “main” domain going forward. It’s a tough choice because I’ve built up some reasonably high rankings on google for 55rueplumet.com, which I will lose if I switch to rueplumet.com as the main one. I think that stinks, but that’s the way the google system works. So I still have that choice to make, but at least I have the domain name I’ve been waiting for all these years.