<SPAM deleted>
moderator note: please dont spam here

Why? I did the proper thing and paid good money for a good URL. I don't need your dodgy redirects :-p

don't get me wrong, i hate spammers too, but why is it "proper" to pay good money for a "good" url? why are redirects "dodgy"?

i dont need your site to get those lame redirects...

I don't hate spammers, just call it an intense dislike.

RE: URL's I've had both in the past and as such I can say that having your own URL is always better. Why? It's more reliable, more related to what your site is either called or deals with and it allows you to show the page you are on at your site, whereas a redirect with cloaking does not. I've seen a number of free URL providers go belly-up in my humble time on the 'Net, yet I doubt that would happen to a major registry like MelbourneIT for example.

Redirects are dodgy for a bunch of reasons. At one time I ran a site that was directed at an audience of age 13-16. I had a something.to/mysite redirect. Now it is expected, since there is no fee, that there will be pop-up ads in exchange for the redirector. Well one day I got flooded with emails because the redirect hoster wasn't making enough money so they decided to expand their advertising to include ads for hard core porn. So now everyone who visited my site, and as I said the vast majority of them were under 18, got presented with popups for porn sites. That doesn't seem dodgy to you?

not really. i'm sure that the re-direct company was required to report that they were using adult pop-up ads, and as a result, if your site was directed towards underage users, you should have changed redirector's (is that a word?) accordingly.

Or shell out a couple bucks more and buy an actual domain name of your very own... OMG, Popup FREE!

I suppose next you're going to ask why anyone would want to pay for dedicated webhosting when you can easily upload your content to geocities.yahoo.com for free.

- Raccoon

The fact that they plaster user's sites with popups and/or framed ads and/or banner ads and/or popunder ads (and in CJB's case, those insane dialogues asking you to download Gator or Comet Cursor [Comet Curse]), is almost as lame as the person who started this thread - I think the 'Net should be commercial-free. I pay an amount every two years to have a proper domain name and hosting the site on a proper webhost and my websites carry no commercial advertising what-so-ever, and God willing, never will.

Hah, are you saying take their word? Because, when I signed up there was a checkmark to "allow adult content" which I did not allow, however as their income decreased, that checkmark disappeared and it was simply everyone was forced to have it. Saying "they'll tell you" is like trusting when a site says "we promise not to give out your personal information" which really means "we promise not to give out your personal information... unless we can make some money doing it" And if you don't believe me on that take a look at http://www.oag.state.md.us/Press/2001/0516b01.htm which talks about the eToys website doing exactly that.

raccoon: umm.. the question was "why are url redirectors dodgy?" not "how can i get hosted?"

codemastr:
so when the checkmark disappeared, you knew that they would most likely be sending your visitors adult oriented popups.

(edited to add replies to both users)

I don't think knowing or not is the point - it was (in codemastr's case) an uninformed breach of an agreement by the people who supplied the URL to him. This is typical of modern commercial practice but none-the-less rude and unethical. A major domain registry/registrar would be less inclined to deal with people in this manner because the revenue comes from registrations and not advertisers.