Ogden on Politics is Back in Business; Don't Buy Your Domain Through Google!

My blog has returned.  Sometime during the past year, I got a new credit card and my blog's domain didn't renew automatically.  I didn't get any email on the subject, even though Google Blogger has two of my email addresses.   The domain expired on 9/20.  The company which was listed as the new owner of until 9/20/2017 is apparently some sort of holding company for the website host.

My blog is hosted through Enom which contracts with Google.  I can't go through Enom to renew though.  I have to go through Google.  And I can't go through Google Domains either. You can talk to Google Domains and Enom people via phone, but it turn out my website is hosted via Google Apps.  To communicate via phone or email with the Google Apps people you need a special code from your administrator page.  You can only get to the administrator page by entering your administrator name and password, which I never have to use for any other reason.  In frustration, I finally started guessing at the admin name and password and, eventually, guessed right.  That got me to billing and let me update the credit card information.

This reminds me a few years ago when my blog had picked up as primary email an email I rarely ever use.  I tried to change the primary email back to the one I use most often and my doing so actually deleted my website! To get my deleted website back, I had to obtain information from several years old emails that were sent to me when I first set up the blog. Fortunately, I had not deleted them.

Some advice.   Anyone who is thinking about starting a blog, and paying for a domain, do NOT do it through Google. Choose some other company, such as GoDaddy, that has representatives you can pick up the phone and talk to when you have a problem.