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How To Not Make Your Visitors Happy

A year or so ago, I started attending a new church.

It's a small church, with an active core of members, and it needed a website. I decided that a Blogger website would be fitting, so I setup a web page. And after I had it working, the pastor announced its existence to the congregation.

A few weeks after the church web page was announced, one of the members came to me after service one Sunday, and said (to this effect):
Chuck, we looked at the website yesterday. And there was a lot about the Bible, but nothing about this church.

So I showed them our website, and they were surprised.
It didn't look anything like that.

And I told them that they made a mistake, and typed the address wrong or something, and we left it at that. But I had no idea how right, and yet how wrong, I was.

Apparently, my fellow church member typed "martinezumc.blogpsot.com", instead of "martinezumc.blogspot.com". The domain "blogpsot.com" has been setup to respond to all subdomain requests, such as "martinezumc.blogpsot.com", with a single long page full of "Gods word", Amazing Bible Studies.

(Note 2009/05/28): The Doug Powell empire has now expanded. In addition to "blogpsot.com", we now have "blogpot.com", serving the same fraud and trash.

(Note 2007/03/02): Amazing Bible Studies is now calling itself Abundant Bible Studies. But it's the same deceitful garbage.

(Note 2007/06/18): Abundant Bible Studies is now calling itself Bible College On Line. The obvious fraudulent features are gone. It still makes no effort to inform the reader that they got there by mistake, so I will leave this web site in place.

Mistyping a URL is normal. And another website, capitalising upon the mistake, is nothing new. But capitalising upon a visitors honest mistake, without any hint of the possibility that maybe the visitor didn't really intend to go there, is anti-social at best. The domain yaho.com is an example of this scenario, or was until bought by Yahoo.

This is how spammers, and other ungodly creatures, operate. Not people who worship Jehovah.

Now if Amazing Bible Studies had a paragraph at the top,
Looking for "martinezumc.blogspot.com"? Try this link. But you might want to come back here later.

then it would not be a page of deceit.

But besides the fact that it makes no attempt to correct the mistaken access, it has links on the page, that are obviously intended to further the deceit.

For any value of (your intended blog URL), whether or not it corresponds to a valid address in blogspot.com, blogpsot.com will respond with their web page. I won't link to that web page, as I have no intention of providing search engine inlinks for them. I won't help advertise them. I will ask you to copy and paste the address (for instance "anything.blogpsot.com") (less the "") into your browser address window, and examine the web page.

(Edit 2007/03/02): DO NOT visit that web site without using a proxy server. It's not at all a web site devoted to Jehovah God.
  • contact us
    links to (your intended blog URL).blogpsot.com/contact.htm
  • AUTHORS OF THIS SITE
    links to (your intended blog URL).blogpsot.com/Author_and_donations.htm
  • Search Engine Directory - World's Highest Hitting English Sites in Major Categories & World News & Weather. Click Here.
    links to http://(your intended blog URL).blogpsot.com/search_engine.htm
  • Click here to send us an e-mail
    links to http://(your intended blog URL).blogpsot.com/contact.htm
  • (For an in-depth study of the Rapture, click here.)
    links to http://(your intended blog URL).blogpsot.com/Documents/Bible_Prophecy/Rapture.htm
  • Water baptism is by full immersion.
    links to http://(your intended blog URL).blogpsot.com/Documents/Doctrines/Baptism.htm

Now earlier, I wrote how to make your visitors happy when they visit your blog. This is just the opposite.

The intention here, from reading the web page in question, is to gather souls for Christs work. That is a noble goal. The final greeting in Amazing Bible Studies:
I CALL HEAVEN AND EARTH TO RECORD THIS DAY AGAINST YOU, THAT I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU LIFE AND DEATH, BLESSING AND CURSING: THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE, THAT…THOU…MAY LIVE-Deut 30:19.

But as Jesus said, from the Gospel of John:
4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Gods word is not built upon deceit and lies. It can only be built upon truth.

Finally, from the Gospel of Matthew,
24:4 Jesus answered them, “Be careful that no one leads you astray. 24:5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will lead many astray.

24:23 “Then if any man tells you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or, ‘There,’ don’t believe it. 24:24 For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.

Comments

Rosemary said…
This person may have good intentions, but I fear it's the devil who has prompted this page, not God. It will only turn people off when they realize they have been deceived!! What a shame to have God's name used in this way.

BV
Mary said…
Well put.
farrst said…
Yes, i just found this out today when i mistyped my blog. This is crap.
I hope their whole world crashes around them
Moderator said…
What I thought was quite hilarious, is that godaddysucks.com will take you directly to... godaddy.com


But this is really lame and I have sent my link out in emails misspelled, causing the email equivalent of uncomfortable silence. ty for keeping the folks informed. Really appreciate your style. ~lauren

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