Ever look up a URL just to see what will turn up? Well, I did that and typed in sajithpremadasa[.]com and gotabayarajapaksa[.]com to see what to expect in 2025. It turns out one of them will get you to Hiru TV’s website and the other to the Department of Prisons. Incidentally, this isn’t the first time the Sajith and Gotabaya domain redirects took a funny turn. These sites’ entire history of existence has been nothing but weird redirects.
The Sajith Premadasa domain, albeit briefly, came into the limelight during the 2019 presidential election campaign. It became a meme-worthy moment when sajithpremadasa[.]com redirected to gota[.]lk. while gotabayarajapaksa[.]com sent you to the Department of Prisons website. The latter is still the case to this day.
According to the Internet Archive, sajithpremadasa[.]com diverted traffic to gota[.]lk for much of 2019 and then to Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Facebook page leading into the next year. The site eventually redirected to Hiru TV’s website before briefly pushing visitors to a random YouTube video about Sajith Premadasa’s wife. Ironically, it doesn’t seem that Sajith Premadasa ever hosted his content on the site.
Meanwhile, gotabayarajapaksa[.]com appears to have a somewhat similar trajectory. The domain was dormant for much of its existence until 2014 when it started redirecting to TamilCanadian [.]com, a now-defunct website. By 2016, the site was sending traffic to the president’s official website, even though Maithripala Sirisena was holding office at the time. Three years later, visitors started getting redirected to the Department of Prisons website, which continues to do so. It’s not just one domain either, both gotabhayarapaksa[.]com and gotabhaya[.]com do the same thing.
Retooling domain names for satire, political messaging, or anything in between is rarely seen in Sri Lanka. But it’s worth pointing out that both politicians utilize LK domains for official communications. There’s no tangible proof either party has any connection to the operations of the domains in question. However, there’s a lot to be said about how things have transpired over recent years where the two politicians are concerned, particularly with the Gotabaya-led government.
Don’t wait on that domain
At the moment, it’s unclear if this is an organized attempt or if someone is doing it for the lulz. All we know is that people are willing to spend a few dollars every year to redirect web traffic from Sajith Premadasa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa to Hiru TV and the Department of Prisons for the simple amusement of it. Well played, whoever you are.
In any case, there’s one thing clear – don’t put off buying that domain. Be it procrastination or general indecisiveness, finding out that the domain name you’ve always wanted is no more, is never a good feeling. So go buy that domain before someone else claims that digital real estate. Also, maybe don’t disregard getting that SSL certificate while you’re at it (looking at you, Department of Prisons).
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