Remember CJB.NET?

Picture this, it's ~2001, you just finished duct taping together your first Geocities website. You are pumped to share it with everyone on IRC....but the URL isn't nearly as cool as you imagined it would be. You get stuck with something like: http://geocities/Heartland/Hills/4729.index.html.

You can't expect people to remember that or type all that out in the address bar. Remember, it's 2001, people actually have to type URLs in instead of relying on Google and AI to just feed them links.

Also, domains are expensive, I'm talking $35 a year for a .com. You are just a teenager, you can't afford that.

In comes CJB to save the day

CJB.net launched in 1998 and over the years provided a handful of services but their claim to fame was allowing the general public to get short and sweet URLs for their personal websites. Instead of that Geocities link above, you could register http://c00lhandle.cjb.net...completely free...no catch. Now that looks much better doesn't it?

But how?

Under the hood, they used a wildcard DNS record. This would send all *.cjb.net traffic to one server that would look your name up in a database and then do a HTTP redirect to your website.

Other services

• Free email aliases like c00lhandle@cjb.net. This worked similar to the URLs. It was essentially a mail forwarding service that would forward emails to your yahoo or hotmail.
• Hidden frame forwarding. This was an optional feature that would essentially load your site in a frame so users would see the cjb.net url in the address bar while on your site. Without it, when users would type in your cjb.net URL and be redirected to your site, they would see your long URL in the address bar.
• A simple control panel for your user account. Let you view your URL, rename it, delete it, change the destination.

How they made money

• Banner advertisements: Displayed on the CJB.NET homepage, registration pages, login pages, and control panel.
• Interstitial/splash pages: Some forwarding modes briefly displayed a CJB page or advertisement before redirecting visitors.
• Hidden frame branding: Depending on the era and account type, CJB could include branding or advertising around the framed content.
• Premium account upgrades: Users could pay for additional features such as removing ads, more forwarding options, or enhanced services.
• Domain registration: Later, CJB sold custom domains like .com, .net, and .org to users who wanted to move beyond a free subdomain.
• Web hosting plans: They expanded into shared web hosting, encouraging users to host their sites directly with CJB.
• Email services: Paid email forwarding and mailbox services were offered as premium features.
• Affiliate commissions: They earned referral income by promoting partner services such as hosting providers, registrars, and software.
• Cross-selling: The control panel regularly promoted CJB's paid products to the millions of users who logged in to manage their URLs.

The downfall

Sometime after the mid 2000s, the email forwarding started to get flaky and messages started disappearing. Redirects were starting to become unreliable. Around 2008, many people had moved on to other services. This is because domain registration become much more affordable and people started relying more on just searching for websites instead of typing in URLs. Personal websites were also becoming less popular due to social media platforms (boo).

It was also around this time that CJB came under fire for it's relationship with an adware distributor called 180solutions (later Zango). Allegedly, CJB hosted sites were presented with misleading prompts encouraging them to install advertising software. This caught the attention of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), which filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for deceptive practices by CJB. Although this didn't lead to any enforcement actions against CJB, it was just another nail in the coffin.

The service ultimately shutdown around July of 2012. The domain is still registered as of writing this post and is set to expire in 2027. R.I.P. 🙏🏻