Watchtower Web Domains

Petraglyph

I did some reverse domain lookups to see what web domains were linked to Watchtower. I did reverse lookups on the hostmaster address, building address, and phone number. I've sorted and deduplicated the results.

There's a few of what appear to be personal websites, perhaps registered by the hostmaster as a favour.

And there's some odd looking domains that at present don't go anywhere but which could be worth keeping an eye on in future.

Perhaps someone can make meaning of some of these?

LevelThePlayingField

I have often wondered why they have mirrored other websites to go to their JW.Org site anyways. Like the ps8318 site. Maybe they were playing around with domain names for a while and the JW one just stuck? Maybe huh? Anyway, they are really in bed with the current JW.Org now anyway. But I wonder too just what they have up their sleeve or out there too.

Juan Viejo2

A company or individual will often buy up a whole series of domain names that might have some connection to them or their corporate websites.

In the case of the Watchtower, they may have wanted to get ahead of the game once they decided to dive in to the deep end of the Internet pool.

You never know when some "apostate" webmaster or group might grab a domain that is close to a site name that you plan to build your image around. Several popular websites had to rethink their own domain names or abandon them entirely and start over because someone grabbed a similar domain that might create problems later.

Sometimes they find that someone else has a very similar name that already is either very popular (thereby creating the possibility of trademark confusion) or has been used for some nefarious deed (former porn or scam site). Potential competitors, enemies or scoundrels might grab a dot net or dot info domain and then make it seem to associated with your site in some way - and then use those domains to trash your reputation.

Some of the above are not live and make no sense at all - but may have been used as test sites. With very unusual domain names few people would be likely to stumble across them before they are ready. It's easy enough to build a new site on a bogus domain that no one will stumble across or a subdomain that no one would be looking for (i.e., http://subdomain.domain.com).

With most new domain names available for between $7 and $25 US, a big corporation could buy up dozens and never use them - and then just let them expire after a year or two if they are not needed.

JV

Listener

They are handy for the WTBTS to have when the official site is banned in certain countries. For example, you can't access the official site in Russia but some of the other sites you can.

Jeffro

LevelThePlayingField:

I have often wondered why they have mirrored other websites to go to their JW.Org site anyways. Like the ps8318 site.

ps8318 = Psalm 83:18. It's not particularly surprising that they have registered domain names based on some of their favourite Bible verses as redirects to their website or as placeholders for future sites. (Hence hag27, heb412, isa4310, lu2343, mr1310, mt1016, mt1130, mt2414, mt711, pr221-22, pr2711, pr418, ps8318, re213-4, zac823.)

Jeffro

Petraglyph:

jw2020.org <-- I wonder why they feel the need to do this?

The 2016 domain name indicates that these year-based domain names are for information about special conventions in the given year.

Petraglyph

The 2016 domain name indicates that these year-based domain names are for information about special conventions in the given year.

Yes, I saw that after I'd posted it and the icon changed colour. It does suggest they are expecting to be holding conventions in 2020.

Who would be running the internet then though? ;)

I can understand all the JW related domains, but it was the lab, project, research domains that particularly caught my eye - wondering what they might be planning (if anything).

http://www.mjt.hu/

Watchtower Web Domains

Petraglyph

LevelThePlayingField

Juan Viejo2

Listener

Jeffro

Jeffro

Petraglyph

jw-verite

Petraglyph

lenaga

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