🤬 Somebody Stole My Website!

This thief needs to be exposed!

Hello to my fellow ever-growing devs!

Firstly, I hope you all have been well! I know it’s been a minute (well months!) since we last spoke! 🫣

And I never thought I’d be coming back like this! As you’ve probably seen from the title, the worst has happened, somebody stole my website Dev Pages.

Mine Vs. Theirs

I honestly can’t believe it, like what kind of lowlife does that?

So here’s how it happened…

Last year in the summer I had to stop writing and also stop working on Dev Pages because I was sick. In fact, the real truth is that I was suffering from really bad morning sickness. So bad that I couldn’t write or focus on anything, I just had to rest.

Fast-forward and I was simply too busy preparing for a baby (who arrived safe and sound at the end of January - a little girl 😇) that I somehow missed my domain renewal email.

I know, I know, it was my fault it expired and I should have had it on auto-renewal, but this only happened on Jan 31st.

I am well aware that once your domain expires then it’s up for grabs, but when I checked the site I was shocked by what I found.

Not only had someone bought my domain, but they stole the whole concept of my website! 😤

They built their own version of my developer tools directory that doesn’t even have 100 tools, mine had close to 1000!

I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had repurposed the domain and used it for something else, but to steal what I was using it for was a low blow.

At this point I don’t know what to do, I put so much time and effort into that site that I feel cheated.

The site itself is full of broken links (e.g. no social media, likes/bookmarks don’t work, sign in link doesn’t work etc) and although it may look somewhat nice (I obviously prefer my more neo brutalist modern design than their overused futuristic design 🙄) , you can tell that it was just something someone put up quickly to steal my traffic and authority for whatever their purpose is.

They are even lying on the site! They have fake blog articles dated from 15th Oct 2023 when I launched the site in August 2023, so how can those articles have been written then?

Their dodgy articles

My original announcement on X

If you ask me, the whole thing is super dodgy!

They say the greatest form of flattery is imitation, but I still feel angry and saddened by all of this 😞

I’m not a vengeful person but oh boy I would love for this thief to be exposed, just so I can ask them why?? 😭

So if you can find them, hit me up!

I could also use some moral support 🥹

I mostly feel sorry for all the people I know who relied on Dev Pages as their source for finding and sharing useful developer tools. I hope to get the site back up on a new domain soon 🤞

Let this be a lesson folks to keep your domains up to date!

It’s a tough pill to swallow but I’ll survive, and there’s bigger and better things to come!

Remember, thieves never prosper…

From your fellow ever-growing dev,

Cherlock Code

P.s. Let me know if anything like this has ever happened to you, and if so, what did you do about it?