4/3/2000
Redirects
A great sermon I once heard pointed out that God does not want us to escape every trial,
but to overcome them. Brick walls and mountains ARE surmountable when you have the right
resources to either get around them or scale them. How often have you heard single friends
say "the good ones are already taken?" Finding a good web domain name generates
the same comment.
I recently got the idea for a new web site that I wanted to call the School of Hard
Knocks. The logical address would be www.schoolofhardknocks.edu.
Unfortunately the .edu extension is one that is regulated and only issued to legitimate 4
year accredited colleges and universities. My next choice was to try .com, .org, and .net
only to discover cyber-squatters grabbed them some time ago and couldn't get anyone to pay
their high ransom.
I credit my nephew with showing me this solution.
Each country in the world outside the US has a 2 letter dot extension. Italy is .it,
Germany is .de, Denmark is .dk and on down the list. One country lucked out. Their dot 2
digit extension actually spells out a word. Tonga is .to. An enterprising firm there has
capitalized on this and grabbed a long list of domain names at that extension. They own
surf.to, bounce.to, snap.to, listen.to, walk.to, run.to, drive.to, kiss.to and the list
goes on. Now rather than let greed rule like most cyber squatters, they made a free
service everyone can use. They set up a redirecting service using all these names. They
appear to finance the operation by making you see ad banners while using their site to set
up your redirect account.
Now here is the beauty of this. You can park your own web page here in the US at ANY
domain URL. It can even be a borrowed sub directory several levels down from the main one.
But you go to their site, and register a simple sub directory UNDER their domain AS A
REDIRECT. You don't have to live or incorporate in the country of Tonga to do this.
I now introduce my new URL (internet address) to the world. It is http://welcome.to/theschoolofhardknocks
Since I profess a lot of stuff, I'm the professor at the site. I only have a few jokes
posted there now, but I think the address has potential.
Redirecting from these great titles is free. I think they do offer a few pay services, but
ad banners seem to fund the bulk of the operation. Go check out what they have yourself.
You may come up with a great address also. It's at http://come.to/v3home.asp
Maybe we singles should "redirect" our own searches to the island of Tonga.
Where else could someone throw a http://kiss.to/you from
anywhere in the world?
LateNiteLeroy
Webmaster at http://www.commutefaster.com (and
now professor at the school of hard knocks)
http://www.888webtoday.com