Recently, we were invited to a friend’s surprise party at the Black Bass Inn in Pennsylvania, and decided to fly up just for the night. The Black Bass turns out to be a charming inn built several decades before the Revolutionary War, but making a reservation wasn’t easy. In fact, it was so hard to find their phone number, I wondered if maybe they had banned telephones as a nod to historic accuracy.
The invitation instructed us to visit http://www.blackbassinn.com, which actually takes you to a porn site called the Boob Tube (with a logo composed of two hot pink cartoon breasts). Okay, that’s funny, but not much help. There are plenty of reviews of the the hotel and its restaurants on various travel and dining sites, but they don’t give a phone number.
Then I started noticing mentions online of people asking if anyone else had the inn’s new phone number. Apparently, the old number was assigned to another customer in the interim between the former owner’s death and the new owner’s re-opening of the inn.
Finally, I went the old-fashioned route and called directory assistance. I had been putting that off, because I wasn’t sure if the hotel was in New Hope or Lumberville, or where in Pennsylvania either of those towns might be. But fortunately that didn’t stump AT&T for long, and soon I was on the phone with a lovely woman at the inn who helped me book what sounds like a pretty fantastic room with exposed stone walls and a view of the Delaware River.
I mentioned to her my experience with the website, which was apparently the first she’d heard of that. She actually guffawed when she pulled up http://www.blackbassinn.com and saw the boobies. Turns out the inn’s real website is at http://www.blackbasshotel.com. Who knew?
Here’s some advice I took myself: Take a few minutes and pretend you’re a potential customer looking for your company online. Try a few variations on your company name — like the Inn and Hotel example. Hopefully, your website and phone and even address are easy to find. But if not, it would be good to know where those potential customers are ending up. Especially if it’s somewhere as colorful as the BoobTube.
Life-Sized Business 
This is so true, many times it has been difficult to find a place online, that is how i ended up here. It was always the Black Bass Inn… Now it’s a Hotel and honestly, well, I wont say anything rather than say something negative.
keep up the good work i enjoyed reading your blog….
Hi Elisabeth,
Indeed easier to find you here than the place.
Why didn’t you leave that # above now you’re leaving me desperately seeking too
grMarco
So good to see you guys this weekend, Marco. I told the owner of the Black Bass about his alternative web site as we were checking out this morning. He said he’d go up to his office and check it out right away! Seemed kind of giddy about it, actually.