Google Apps Ends Availability Of Their Free Edition

Last week, Google dropped a bombshell on many small client developers.

Starting on December 6, 2012, Google will no longer offer new accounts for the free edition of Google Apps. Google Apps free edition is sometimes referred to as "Standard Edition."

This announcement will bring changes to Blogger, and to custom domain publishing. Many owners of Blogger blogs published using the Google Custom Domain feature have learned to use various Google Apps wizards, to setup and to maintain their domains.

Blogger blog owners have learned (some unwillingly) to use Google Apps for various tasks.

1. Access the registrar's Domain Manager wizard, after using "Buy a domain".
2. Deactivate service redirects, such as the Sites service.
3. Maintain domain "auto renew" settings.
4. Reset the ever painful "Another blog ..." symptom of database corruption.
5. Set the option to "Redirect mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com".
6. Setup email delivery for the domain.

Each of these tasks will have to be performed in different ways, for blog owners who purchased their domains after last week. Previously setup Apps accounts, for the immediate future, are safe.

If you already have the free edition, you can continue to use it for free. This change has no impact on existing users of the free edition.

So far, we've seen some new domain owners use the Trial version of Google Apps, to recycle domain settings, when dealing with "Another blog ...". We hope that this technique will allow temporary access to the domain root redirect, and to service redirect, settings also. We are also seeing a limited functionality free version, which requires some effort to setup, in some cases.

I'm still wondering where Google will hand out Registrar login instructions, and let us maintain domain renewal settings. The popular option to have custom email addresses, based on the domain URL, is most likely gone.

I'll update this article, as details are provided.

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Research Custom Domain Problems From The Beginning Of The Purchase

Sometimes, researching a problem, with a custom domain published blog, involves a Who Is lookup, to determine key domain details - like DNS server namess, purchase date, registrar name, and others. Starting with the properly spelled domain name is essential, to getting a useful Who Is lookup. In cases where the blog / domain owner can't spell the domain name consistently, you can start even more basically.

To determine the details about a domain purchase, when you have any doubt, ask for a copy of the invoice or receipt. If the transaction was conducted electronically, copy and paste of the key information is most useful. If the transaction involved a paper trail, have the receipt scanned, and a picture posted somewhere that you can view.

The invoice or receipt, for any domain purchase, will help identify - and confirm or deny - key details.

• Correct domain name - spelling.
• Purchase date.
• Name of registrar.

All of these details are useful, in researching a problem with a custom domain published blog.

Starting with the domain name, verified from the invoice or receipt, you can use any of several similar Who Is lookup tools.

• DomainTools.
• MXToolbox.
• Name ("who.is").
• Network-Tools.

Having multiple complementary tools can be useful, many times - both as backup (in case one is offline, for some reason) - and to confirm or deny unexpected results.

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