How do you best shut down your own website?

Long time ago, 12 year olds put up (free) websites, I did too, thinking if 12 year olds can do that, I can too, as I was older than 12 at the time LOL

Recently, I received a notice that my website will be shut down. I forgot that the website even existed, and I may even have other websites that I have forgotten about ... at the time I was not paying attention to what I did on the net

In any case, the reason for the shutdown is that the company ceased to offer any webhosting services, free or not. In other words, I have little to worry about cybersquatters putting up a website as if it was me and use it for porn and what not

But what about a popular hobby website that you own, you no longer enjoy the hobby, and you want to shut down the website? How do you prevent your ID from being used for porn?

Couldn't you get in touch with the ISP of your site and ask them to shut it down?
If they remove it wouldn't the ID stuff go with the removal?

I had one with fios and they did the same to me. They told me that once it was removed all the rest associated with the site would be gone to.

@z3r010 John would be the one to weigh in on this.

Haydon said:

In any case, the reason for the shutdown is that the company ceased to offer any webhosting services, free or not. In other words, I have little to worry about cybersquatters putting up a website as if it was me and use it for porn and what not

But what about a popular hobby website that you own, you no longer enjoy the hobby, and you want to shut down the website? How do you prevent your ID from being used for porn?

Click to expand...

Me thinks your over thinking it. Even if they used your web page name there is the electronic trail that wouldn't lead back to your original web page or ISP.

Confusion (in the masses) can even happen if the legitimate site is still up and running and thriving, e.g. between this site and windows11forums.com

Personally, I wouldn't worry about old free sites.

Yes, I remember the "free" web sites very well. I started my web site around 2004 and tried every "free" web host I could find. But I found them all to be trash. Their only goal was to fill a page with advertising and didn't allow you to use anything useful. I threw them all away. I just deleted all my files and walked away. Never bothered to actually shut down my access. As far as I know, they are all gone.

I went on to paid hosting with GoDaddy. I was with GoDaddy for about 10 years, until they turned into complete trash. They kept on raising the hosting fees and reducing the site offerings. They offered to provide a SSL certificate for a mere $250 per year. The last time they called me, I gave them a piece of my mind and found a new host that was much cheaper and provides the certificates for free (DreamHost). They never called me again. GoDaddy is still charging $150 per year for site certificates, which is probably whey they are no longer in the top 10 of hosting sites.

It was a bit of a hassle to move my domain name and delete my access. Before DreamHost, I went to a different web host. But it was to complex to actually do anything, I looked for something better. It took a lot of back and forth email. But it's all gone now. My new host works great.