FireButchDavis.com redirects to TarHeelBlue.com which is the official athletic site of the University of North Carolina.
Online chatter assumes U.N.C. has bought the domain, but why would U.N.C. even activate it?
According to WhoIs.DomainTools.com the domain registration is private, but has been around for several years.
The recent controversy surrounding Butch Davis may have resurrected a sleepy domain that already had the redirect some time ago. One commenter below claims to have noticed the redirect over a year ago.
The reason we are interested in it now is the wide and growing assumption that U.N.C. is behind the domain which seems very unlikely.
There are a number of ways to redirect to another domain. One of our developers suggests that FireButchDavis.com could be using a webserver for its redirect. Most of you are familiar with redirect pages that tell you that you are being redirected. This one does not.
Those of you familiar with Apache might be able to help us web commoners better understand.
Please feel free to email me: matthew.fortner@newsobserver.com
Matthew Fortner has been at The News & Observer since 2002. He has a passion for gadgets, cutting-edge technology and all things geek.
Comments
Nothing you can do except...
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 19:47 — bwsewellWell, it looks like this domain was registered on October 23, 2009. There's no way of telling if the owner intends to renew it or not, but if he doesn't... it'll expire on the 23rd of this month and if UNC wants to do anything about it, I would suggest they just buy the domain and just forward it to some generic blank 404 page.
WHAT IS THIS A
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 13:48 — golfer_68WHAT IS THIS A STORY??????????????
I support keeping Butch Davis
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 10:59 — Worz4UNCuntil and unless I see or hear something more significantly negative than I have todate.
Domain Registrar Redirect
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 10:47 — ruralncThis appears to be a registrar redirect. There is no file located on the FireButchDavis.com, which likely means that the domain does not have a server behind it. Instead, the registrant just typed in a site for the domain to redirect to.
Bad reporting
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 09:27 — DrCarolinaI looked into buying this domain over a year ago and it was directed towards tarheelblue.com then. The N&O has done enough speculating on news lately. Just because you have a "blog" on the website shouldn't give you the right to report bs like this.
This is easy to do...
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 09:27 — Only1JoeP8.... what kind of "Tech Blog" is this?
This is a BASIC programming move to set up any domain to automatically redirect to another, just Google it.
The idea that UNC would buy this site is far fetched, and the fact that you mention "online chatter" about it just shows you didn't try very hard to research this post.
The fact that you say it is a "hack" is pretty off base, too. You don't need to hack to do this, you just need to be the admin or have access to the firebutchdavis site.
And if UNC DID buy it, why would the redirect be a "affirmation" that they want to keep him? They could care less about a stupid website out there. You can't buy up every possible combo of "fire<coach>.com" for all of your teams.
The fire <your coach here> .com
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 08:49 — Puddentainweb sites have been around for a while. An enterprising and proactive individual would buy that up as soon as he or she was hired. I wouldn't make to much of that.
Is it possible..
Tue, 10/05/2010 - 08:43 — UNC1998that this is going too far? People who outside of this stuff can scream to fire Davis, ban football, outlaw Carolina blue.... It seems to me there should be a point that just doesn't merit going to. That said, this is America. Freedom of expression is a base tenet. Have at it.