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67

answers:

3

One of my sites - mediadeals.co.uk is showing a blank page.

So I went back to my developer. He asked me to add this on my hosts file in windows->system32->drivers->etc->hosts

74.86.205.232 mediadeals.co.uk

After doing this the site started working. What does this mean?

+1  A: 

The reason its not working is there is no DNS record for it.

The hosts file is allowing you to point via a local DNS replacement.

All you need is to get the site hosted somewhere and a DNS entry setup.

If you like the site and he is willing to host for $150 then go for it, depending on your contract, if he should have done in the initial budget then you should question this.

RE

Reallyethical
+1  A: 

Thats crazy. All he did was make it work on YOUR machine. The hosts file simply maps names to IP addresses. Its like a local DNS. What needs to happen for the outside world to see this the DNS servers that are authoritative for mediadeals.co.uk need to have an A record pointing to 74.86.205.232.

Matt Wrock
if I change the A records to 74.86.205.232 then it will work, I understand. But who owns this ip address? If I change the A records, can my developer block my site in the future?
Arjun
+1  A: 

How long ago did you register that site name? Don't forget that DNS entries may take a while to propagate across the web. 24 hrs+ sometimes.

And btw, that "fix" will ONLY work on your machine. It maps the friendly URL to an IP address for you, not for the world.

Paul Sasik
The site has been registered for years and it was working fine, just stopped working by itself recently. I understand that it has enabled the site only for me. Has he re-created a copy of the site on another hosting? or is the ipaddress mine?
Arjun
I thought the same thing but Nic.uk shows registration as 03-Apr-2007 so it will have propagated.
Reallyethical
Is it possible that the lease on that IP address lapsed and was purchased by someone else? This is really sounding more and more bizarre.
Paul Sasik