I recently disconnected my domain name from the web host for personal reasons, and when I went to reconnect it less than two weeks later I found that the domain was now being used by a casino website despite the fact that I still own the domain name and have sole access to the DNS records. How is this possible?
In: Technology
They don’t, no way to “take over” a domain without someone giving it up first, perhaps you weren’t really the registrant (owner).
Some web hosting companies will “lease” or “rent” you a domain, but they retain ownership. If you miss a payment, they could lease or rent it to someone else or even sell it at auction.
What’s the domain?
EDIT: It is also possible that your ISP is injecting the casino website for anything that doesn’t exist. You could confirm that by going to something like “thissiteisbogus.yahoo.com” in your web browser.
Go here and type in your domain name: [https://lookup.icann.org/en](https://lookup.icann.org/en)
This will tell you not only the list of authoritative nameservers registered for the domain, but who owns it. Based on what you’ve said, you probably don’t own it anymore. You need to talk to your registrar (the company you bought the domain name from). Have you tried logging into your registrar’s portal and checking on the domain name?
Someone might be poaching your domain. Some DNS providers handle unresolvable queries with the appropriate error code. Others, simply send you to a website of their choice, which likely pays an advertising fee. It’s not cool, but common.
If you have access to the DNS then delete whatever is inappropriate, and find out what you need to do to prevent anyone else from editing it.
Sounds like a case of domain hijacking. Did you forget to lock your domain?
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