Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted

In mid-2022 I bought a new domain name.

The name was musicbox.fun. I got it for a side-project, an interactive online music box that I had built and hosted at musicboxfun.com. The new name was shorter and more quirky. I felt lucky to have grabbed it.

Unfortunately, musicbox.fun had a history. Before I bought it, the domain was used to host pirated music.

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Apparently, this is a thing that happens to domain names, but as far as I know, there’s not really a name for it. When I described it to my wife, she said “Oh, so it’s haunted.”

“Haunted” is the perfect word for this:…