This week The Pirate Bay lost use of several of its 'hydra' domain names that millions of people have become accustomed to over the past year. The great irony here is that the site is now back to using its original domains which have worked perfectly all along. In fact, it was only fear of losing these domains that caused the hopping in the first place.

How time flies. Just over a year ago The Pirate Bay was going through some of the most turbulent times in its entire history.

Following a raid at a Swedish datacenter the site stayed offline for several weeks, an event that fueled the rise of endless ‘replacement’ sites.

While many of the sites stepping up to fill the gap left by The Pirate Bay looked like the real deal, many were simply incomplete copies. To their credit, the operators of some of these sites were upfront about their status but others did everything they could to claim their place as the real Pirate Bay reincarnated.

Of course, when the real Pirate Bay returned at the end of January 2015, many of these other sites questioned their place in the market. Were they needed anymore? Were they even wanted? As time pressed on many simply dissolved but others carried on either as a clone, proxy or mirror.

While this kind of behavior had previously been encouraged by the operators of The Pirate Bay, it ended up causing huge confusion among casual users who had no idea which domains to trust. As previously highlighted, it contributed to a growing branding crisis among ‘pirate’ sites.

However, after returning to its full glory in February 2015, The Pirate Bay put faith in its trusted ThePirateBay.se domain and watched its users do the same. But by May the site was in trouble again when the Stockholm District Court ordered that domain to be seized, pending an appeal.

In response TPB moved to a ‘hydra’ of new domains including .GS, .LA, .VG, .AM, .MN and .GD TLDs but during the months that followed problems began to eat away at them. This week came the icing on the cake when the site’s registrar disabled a batch of active domains.

While it’s possible that the issues with these domains may be solved at some point in the future, The Pirate Bay needed to do something quickly to keep the show on the road. As a result the site is now mainly using its .SE and .ORG domains. The irony here is that these have worked all along and it was only the fear of losing them that prompted all the domain hopping in the first place.

So where is The Pirate Bay today and how does one identify it among all the clones, mirrors and proxies? Verified Pirate Bay domains that can be trusted to link to the real version of the site are shown below.

Most domains should already look familiar but for now it seems likely that of the standard domains ThePirateBay.SE will remain most stable and least likely to be taken down on short notice. ThePirateBay.org has had its own problems recently but they appear to be over, at least for now.

The TOR/Onion address uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion should also be fine longer term but it’s hardly the most memorable set of digits for anyone to recall.

While still operational, ThePirateBay.LA currently seems most vulnerable after being given ‘clienthold‘ status earlier in the week.

In addition to those listed above the TPB crew have many other domains held in backup which could be introduced should any key domains experience further issues. Most do not currently link or divert to The Pirate Bay so there’s little point in listing them right now.

Overall it’s been a turbulent 12 months for The Pirate Bay and there’s little to suggest that 2016 will be any easier. While hosting has been surprisingly stable in recent times at a bare minimum one should expect more domain issues. But as history as shown us, other surprises could be just around the corner.