FTD Florists On Line Sleaze

T

Tom

Member
Dec 26, 2003
64
48
18
Dover
www.garrisonhill.com
State / Prov
New Hampshire
A customer I was working with today was looking at our website. I attempted to also access our website so that we could both look at the same thing. I entered our main web address, www.garrisonhill.com. The URL first appeared normally as "ftd.com/garrisonhill/", then changed to "ftd.com/best-sellers-ctg..." What then appeared stunned me: "We're sorry. We couldn't find that page. Save 20% sitewide!" I'd been redirected to the ftd.com website, where I could get 20% off! I'm unable to figure out how to paste a screenshot of the page here, but just hop over to www.garrisonhill.com and you can see it. I called FTD FOL and spoke with "Edward", who told me that I needed to call Network Solutions to have them "fix" the problem, then call FTD FOL back. We buy 11 variations of the web address, and they all redirect to FTD.com except garrisonhillflorist.com. Originally, we only had garrisonhill.com, but five years ago our ever-helpful FTD rep took it upon himself to add garrisonhillflorist.com for us. Eventually, we added the other variations, all pointing to garrisonhill.com, which is the ONLY address we publicize. "Edward" was very polite but frustrating as I began to lose patience. He said that when I called back FTD FOL would add all eleven URLs, giving me one free and charging me $4 each (per month??) to "host" the others. I've purchased all 11 URLs from godaddy.com and checked that they're current. They need to be renewed in November. My local ISP is paid $35 per year per URL for "domain mapping" - which I believe just means pointing them all to garrisonhill.com. That account is also current. I've called the web hosting people at the ISP and left a message, but have not yet heard back from them. Has anyone else had to deal with this? I'd rather have FTD take the website down altogether than have customers redirected to FTD.com, but "Edward" wasn't interested in that. ARRGHHH!!! Why does every day seem like a new struggle with the sleazes of the internet world who dream up trick after trick to deceive consumers and steal business? There are many instances where the sleazes are just using their expertise to outmaneuver us. In this case, I can't call it anything but stealing.
 
Tom. I checked it out and your correct.
I watched the tab load and it said 'Error' first, then it changed to 'ftd.com 20% statewide'.
Then when I tried to back out of the tab/site, it wouldn't let me. Just kept returning me to the ftd page. One of the OG's uses this "won't let you leave site" tactic also.
I finally just closed out the tab and back to FC.

Soooo glad I got away from them years ago. What crooked behaviors. Who could think of this stuff!
 
I haven't dug into your issue but it sounds like the re-directs aren't working properly. DO try godaddy.com to make sure the domains are being redirected properly to the actual URL of your site hosted by FTD.

FTD changes their site architecture from time to time, and it really screws up the works for sites they host.

Sorry this happened. Better today than a major holiday. Strongly suggest you look to move to a hosting company that allows your data to reside on a server you can control.
 
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Is the website its suppose to go to?
http://www.ftdfloristsonline.com/garrisonhill/

Right now your URL goes to
http://www.ftd.com/garrisonhill

FTDgarrisonhill.jpg'

That is not cool at all.

All of your URLs should be pointing to the http://www.ftdfloristsonline.com/garrisonhill/

Someone changed it to ftd.com instead of ftdfloristonline.com

Do you control your URLS or does FTD?

Go on to Godaddy and check to make sure whatever URLS you have forwarding to your site are pointing to the http://www.ftdfloristsonline.com/garrisonhill/
 
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The local company that does my domain mapping and domain name registration was able to fix it this morning. They said that it appeared that FTD had made the change that caused the problem. And, of course, FTD that picked up the orders until I got it fixed.
 
all the more reason to dump the FTD sponsored/hosted site and move to an independent one.
 
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Tom said:
The local company that does my domain mapping and domain name registration was able to fix it this morning. They said that it appeared that FTD had made the change that caused the problem. And, of course, FTD that picked up the orders until I got it fixed.
Click to expand...
Good reason to move to Strider for your domain hosting...
 
FTD changed their FOL URLs way back in 2007 and it was discussed in this thread.

I actually used Tom's site in my example of how local florists hosted by FOL would be impacted.

Let me explain why some florists will get really hurt.

Take Garrison Hill Florist in Dover NH - http://www.florists.ftd.com/garrisonhill/ Yahoo recognizes at least 23 links into that URL http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com...wm=Explore+URL

Today they're #1 on Google with that URL for Florist Dover NH . Come April 1, anyone clicking on that result will be shown an error page, possibly with a link to FTD.com.

The mirrored site already exists - http://ftdfloristonline.com/garrisonhill/ - but no one links to it so it will be like starting over with a new website.

It will take a while for search engines to find the new page, especially without a direct link or redirect. Even when they find it, the benefit of the other links pointing to their domain will be lost, possibly forever.

Within a week or two, Garrison Hill Florist won't be found anywhere near the top of Google - if at all.

Like I said, this is terrible timing - especially with Mother's Day on the horizon.
Click to expand...
Has FTD really been showing those redirects as non-working for 4 years? That's a lot of traffic for them to snag.
 
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