My linkmeister sites were unavailable for most of the day today. Why? Because my domain registrar wanted me to verify my contact info for the domain, and it had purportedly sent me an email asking me to do so, an email I failed to respond to. So it put a “Client Hold” on the domain, disabling it. If that’s not using a sledge hammer to kill a gnat I don’t know what is, but that was why the sites were down.

I searched all of my email inboxes and folders (electronically! Not visually!) and found an email from the company requesting I verify my info for my stevetimberlake.com domain, but nowhere to be found was there one for linkmeister.com.

Nonetheless, after my filling out a support ticket (which never got a response) and trying the phone number (which was disconnected after pressing “2” for tech support) I got through to the outfit using a Live Chat function on their website. The polite young man (Suhan S, of course) explained about the verification. I explained I never got an email. He said “Well, give me a valid email address and fill out the security question info and tell me the answer and I’ll send you the verification notice again.”

Anybody see the security hole here? I just picked that security question and answered it! I could have been Joe Fershlugginer or Mortimer Snerd with a valid email address and it would have satisfied the requirements.

Fortunately I am the proper owner of the linkmeister.com domain, and I finally managed to get that verified. My sites came back up about 3:30pm my time.