Renewing Your Custom Domain Registration

Some Blogger blog owners, having experienced the anxiety of custom domain setup, intend to carefully maintain their domain registration.

We see a few queries, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, about domain registration renewal.

How do I make sure my registration gets renewed?

or

How do I renew registration before it expires?

or, possibly

My blog now displays a search page! Have I been hacked?

Some registration issues will depend upon how the domain registration was originally purchased.

Domains purchased directly from a registrar - whether using eNom, GoDaddy, or a third party registrar, will have to be renewed directly from the registrar. It's not possible to migrate a direct purchase to Blogger / Google registration for payment, any more than to use the Blogger / Google automatic DNS setup. Once you purchase domain registration from a registrar, you are on your own.

If you used Blogger "Buy a domain", Google Apps, or Google Wallet, to purchase the domain registration, you should get email reminders when registration is expiring. However, this will depend upon whether your Blogger / Google account, under which you purchased the registration, uses an active and accessible email address.

If you choose to anonymise yourself by using a bogus or inactive email address for your Blogger or Google activities, don't expect to get email reminding you, or allowing you to renew domain registration.

The most reliable way to assure the domain remains registered is to use domain auto renewal. You can check your auto renewal settings using the Google Apps administrator account, for the domain (now called the "Admin Console"). Be aware of the oddities of the Google One Login wizard, and Google Apps, when logging in.

For domains purchased before December 2012, you'll use email from Google Apps, or an entry in your Google Wallet log, to retrieve the token to setup your Google Apps account. For domains purchased after November 2012, you will have only a limited access Google Apps account, which you should reset the password, to access.

If you intend to use domain auto renewal, make sure that the bank account (credit, or debit) is active, and currently paid. If your bank rejects the payment, you should get a notice - but again, this will come reliably when the email account associated with the domain is active and accessible by you.

Procedures for renewal after expiration are different - and may cost substantially more than the normal yearly fee.

The best renewal experiences, of course, start with advance planning.

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Using "Buy a domain", From Outside The USA

As custom domain publishing becomes more popular with Blogger blog owners, it's inevitable that people outside the USA would start using it, routinely.

Questions about payment options are seen regularly, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How much does a domain cost?

This used to have a simple answer.

$10 US, charged against a major bank issued credit card.

With the internationalisation of Blogger, the answer becomes significantly more complex.

Using Google Wallet, one may purchase a domain in over 230 countries.

The Google billing system accepts payments in over 230 countries with an international credit card.

We now see mention of specific payment methods which are not accepted - though they appear to be important enough to be documented by Google.

• Health Savings Account (HSA) cards.
• Transit cards.
• Western Union/Money Gram.
• Any escrow type of payment.

From what I have observed, using a bank issued credit card involves pretty complex "peer to peer" type transactions, between at least 3 parties.

1. Google.
2. The bank providing the credit account for the blog owner.
3. The bank providing the payment account for the registrar.

Item #2 provides intriguing options.

• American Express (USD Only).
• Discover (USD Only).
• MasterCard.
• Visa.
• Visa Electron (Outside of US Only).

I have no idea what #3 may involve, internationally. I know that accepting payments, even within the USA, is not as simple as making purchases.

If these options do not satisfy you, personally, you are entitled to purchase a domain from almost any registrar which provides an acceptable payment method. However, you will need to accept some responsibility for the technical details involved, in setting up the domain.

The complexities of International Banking will make "simple" purchases such as non BlogSpot URLs, for Blogger blogs, interesting to watch.

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Anonymity, Your BirthDate, And Your New Blogger / Google Account

Not all new Blogger blog owners understand why they are asked for their birthdate, when they setup a Blogger or Google account.

Some folks see this as a violation of their right to privacy, and enter a fake birthdate. Some real serious privacy enthusiasts might enter "01/01/01", just to get through the setup process - maybe intending to correct it, later.

Nobody entering "01/01/01", for one's birthdate, suspects that claiming such a birthdate makes them - in 2013 - appear to be 12 years of age. Unfortunately, 12 years is below the minimum age for owning a Blogger blog.

Since Blogger / Google tries to protect the young people on the Internet from inadvertently exposing themselves - or their families or friends - to unknown dangers, people who may appear to be of insufficient age are subject to having their Blogger / Google accounts, and Blogger blogs, deleted or locked.

If you entered a fake birthdate some time ago, and now find your account or blog locked or deleted, you need to prove your age to Google - and you should do this promptly.

The Google Accounts document Frequently Asked Questions about Google Account and Age Requirements explains how you do this. The process of verifying your age / birthdate is not convenient - and some privacy enthusiasts may claim that it too violates their privacy rights - but it is necessary, to let you correct your birthdate - when you are legitimately of legal age.

Now, you have to hope that you did not, intentionally or mistakenly, also provide a bogus email account as your Blogger / Google account name / recovery email address. The process of identifying yourself as the owner (former, nominally underage) of a given Blogger / Google account is easier to do, when you have access to the email account stated as the account recovery email address.

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