Moving from Google's G Suite legacy free edition to something else

This article is a little different from most: I'm using it to keep notes about the process and discoveries and decisions I make as I move my blogs from G Suite legacy free edition to alternatives. Some of them will use to Google Workspace. But some are not making anything like enough money for that to be an option. So I'll be investigating what to do for them, too.

It's going to be edited and expanded a LOT of times over the next few days.

What triggered this change

See this post for details of the messages I've received from Google

Summary - things I learned

Each registrar had different things I had to turn off to make the transfer successful.

Keeping a spreadsheet with the current status of my domains was crucial. If I only had one or two, it would have been easy. But I've got about 10 - wayyy to easy to forget one without a well-managed list.

With GoDaddy, this was "Remove Domains by Proxy" - which I never would have guessed. eNom was easier.

Even after the domain was transferred,

If I removed the custom-domain setting in Blogger, the domain stopped working fairly quicly - and it was easy enough to assign the custom domain again.
If I didn't remove the custom-domain setting in Blogger - the domain kept working. I think this is because G Suite is still assuming that I'm going to migrate to Workspace and that they will be providing DNS hosting. It seems odd - but I'm going to leave it for now, and focus on moving my domains. I suspect it's important not to forget this forever though, or else one day I'll find that my websites have stopped working.

POP to Outlook was the easiest way to transfer email accounts. Once I've got the domain in Dreamhost, I'll set up email accounts there, rename the ones in Outlook, set up Outlook to access the new ones via IMAP, and just drag/drop the existing mailbox content from the old to the new mailboxes in Outlook.

Option 1: Move blog(s) to Google Workspace

This is fine for any blogs which are making enough money to afford the Workspace charges.

But it's not OK for a few of my niche area blogs (either thru geography or topic) which aren't and won't make this sort of income. So there's an Option 2 listed below.

Watch this space for more about Option 1 - I expect it to be simple though, so am doing it later.

First case: Blog has a Google account with blog-administrator rights, which has an name which is inside my domain

So I can log into Blogger with editor@myDomain.com and administer this blog (not the domain).

This domain has three users:

Administrator (was assigned by Google when I purchased the domain - and I need to keep this account to manage it inside Workspace. Unless I can assign administrator rights to one of the other accounts - but that may not be a good idea security-wise.

myName - used to let people email me personally

Editor - the generic blogger editor and administrator. This name gets displayed on the RSS feed of posts, so people can find it. But perhaps I could give it a email account instead of a domain hosted email account, so not have to pay for it???

Billing is per user. Until August 2022, it's free. Then it's $US3 per user per month for a year. Then $US3 per user per month.

So one year of $US 9 per month = $US108 per year. This is ok.

Then $US 216 per year. This seems too expensive. If it was two users, it would be $US144 per year.

ACTION: once all domains are moved, see how I can reduce the cost of this one.

Thought: Could I manage more than one domain from this set of accounts? One of my others is tightly linked, I don't see why I need an administrator account for that separately. INVESTIGATE THIS TOMORROW!

Option 2: Moving blog(s) to somewhere else

There are a few different cases to think about: the registrar which Google used (eNom, goDaddy - and there were even a couple of DomainDiscount24, but I've already moved them when DD24 changed their hosting plans last year).

Don't want to use Workspace for this domain - single website on the domain case - registrar is eNom

Decide who the new registrar will be. (I'm using DreamHost - I chose them before, because they allow me to have email-address hosting separate from web-hosting. This is a really important feature for small time operations, where the revenue doesn't -yet- warrant paying for domain hosting)
Initiate a domain transfer from their end: they ask for an EPP key
Log into www.admin.google.com with the domain-administrator account that I have for this domain (note: in the first case I did, this account was the only one I had inside the domain, and I've never used it for email).
From inside the domain administrator, went to the Manage Domains tab and clicked View Details for the Primary domain
Open the Advanced DNS settings fold-down section.
This gave me a link to sign in to the DNS console (for eNom, this was https://access.enom.com), plus sign-in username and password.
Signed in with this password
Because it's eNom:

Edit the Registrar Lock settings and choose Disable (to allow me to transfer)
Under General Settings, clicked on Email Auth Info to Registrant: a few minutes later, my regular email (which is set as the forwarding address for the domain-administration account) got an email message with the EPP key, which I entered to the DreamHost site.

DreamHost replied that "Request to transfer myDomain.com to DreamHost has been submitted!"

They also noted that:

Provided your domain is unlocked and privacy protection is disabled at your current registrar, the transfer process should take 7-10 days.
Your current registrar may send you an email to approve the transfer. (This part of the process is now optional.)

The bit about "privacy protection is disabled" is worrying: am pretty sure I had this enabled. In eNom, looked under the Contact Information tab, and there's a setting for ID Protect. Edited and changed this to Disabled - in case it is required.

For several hours after I did this, my domain was still working, and I'd received no emails to transfer it. I was expecting a transfer payment to be processed today - so just in case, I went into Billing and chose Cancel my subscription

(Because I left this so close to the day when payment is due to be taken, there's a chance that there will be a double-payment: I'm willing to take this risk, because I wasn't able do this earlier, and it's still way cheaper than paying for a year's Google Workspace subscription for this blog, which doesn't make enough money to cover the cost).

The next morning, I got an email from eNom (specfically googleclients@enom.com)

STANDARDIZED FORM OF AUTHORIZATION

DOMAIN NAME TRANSFER - Confirmation of Registrar Transfer Request

Attention: My Name

Re: Transfer of thisDomain.com

G Suite received notification on May 27 2022 6:01AM that a request to transfer a domain name to another registrar has been initiated. If you want to proceed with this transfer, you do not need to respond to this message. If you wish to cancel the transfer, please respond to this message before Jun 1 2022 6:01AM by using the following URL:

https://transfer-approval.com/some-codes-in-here

If we do not hear from you by Jun 1 2022 6:01AM, the transfer will proceed.

If you have any questions about this process, please contact googleclients@enom.com.

So I have a chance to change my mind, or tell them it was a mistake. Otherwise it will happen in the early morning on 1 June. An open question is - the early morning, in which timezone. I'd hazard a guess and say GMT, since 6am GMT was roughly when I got sent the email. But this may be wayyy wrong.

Reading some more info at Dreamhost, it says I could have used eNom's facilities to change the name-servers to the Dreamhost ones before I started the transfer, and this would remove the downtime when the transfer happens. But that doesn't seem right: with the DD24 to Dreamhost move that once the domain transfer happens, I need to

Remove the custom-domain re-direction for the blog in Blogger
Wait a while (hopefully only an hour) while that propogates.
Set up a new custom-domain redirection for the blog in Blogger - this time using the new Dreamhost control panel to set up their values.

and I don't see how just changing the name-server hosts will achieve all that. Am going to ignore this, and assume I'll need to manually migrate each domain that I transfer.

.... Wait seven days!

On 2 June at about 6am in my time zone (ie one day later than the email said) I got an email from Dreamhost saying that my domain transfer was successful. I tested the blog - and as expected, it was no longer working. Next steps:

Delete the existing Custom Domain from Blogger (Dashboard > Settings > Publishing) - and wait an hour or so for that to take effect.
In the same screen, set up the Custom Domain again - this time adding the CNAME and ANAME records in Dreamhost. Wait about 20 mins, and my domain is working again.

Except - the domain was working in that I could go to the homepage and directly view individual posts from the Blogger dashboard, but every internal link wasn't working. I also needed to re-enable HTTPS for the blog.

Don't want to use Workspace for this domain - single website on the domain - registrar is GoDaddy

Similar process to the previous case.

When I went into the domain control panel, found that my 1 user was using 64meg of space. Upon investigation, it has an admin account, with lots of spam messages - deleted them and cleared the trash, it's now using zero space.

All key messages sent to this account have been forwarded to my main account. Or have they - do I have invoices??? Nope.

So I need to find a way to export email messages from administrator@myDomain.com into my main Google account.

The obvious starter is Google Takeout:

Export is easy

It created a zip file, with a MBOX file under Mail. So how to open the MBOX file? Initial searching suggests a bunch of dodgy looking 3rd party utilities. This Lifehacker article says to use Thunderbird - and it seems to be the best option.

So maybe Takeout isn't the best option.

This LifeHacker article says that POP works for transferring one gmail account to another (and my administrator@myDomain.com does look like a gmail account). I wonder if I can create a POP connection from Outook to my administrator account, download the messages that way? Yes - that worked after I went into account security settings and allowed less secure apps to access the account (off by default from May 2022). (will turn it off immediately afterwards).

Back to the main process:

Signed into the GoDaddy DNS-manager

Interestingly auto renew is off (it wasn't previously - they must be Workspace-changes-aware?) and GoDaddy is showing that the domain is not in use. (It is)

Scroll down to the bottom of their page, and there are specific options for the Workspace changes

Even when I selected the 2nd, they made a bid to have me keep the domain with GoDaddy

You may not need to transfer.
If you're transferring to use your domain with a third-party service--don't! We've made it easy to connect your domain to almost any service while you keep it right here and enjoy our award-winning support, plus easy domain management.

But my previous research said that they don't offer email hosting without webhosting (expensive) - so I'm transferring. (And when I looked at the list of services they support integration with, Blogger isn't listed.

It looked like the actual transfer was easy, GoDaddy did the unlocking automatically, and gave me the transfer code on-screen as well as emailing it to me. After that, there was a message saying they'd turned domain protection off, would be in touch by email to confirm, and the process would take 5-7 days. This 1am on 7-June - so lets see when the emails turn up.

My first attempt was not successful

After I signed out of GoDaddy, I checked my emails before signing off for the night - and found that things didn't go so smoothly. There are a few messages from Google Workspaces (interestingly, not from GoDaddy, who I was signed in to).

The first one asked to verify my email address I'm not quite sure why that that was needed - but did it anyway. There was about a 10-15 minute delay between my seeing this and doing the validation.

We noticed that you need to verify your email address. All you need to do is click the button below (it only takes a few seconds). You won't be asked to log in to your Google Workspace account – we're simply verifying ownership of this email address.

Verify your email address

If you don't verify your email address, we’re required to temporarily put your website on hold until verification is complete.* Thanks for being a Google Workspace customer.

The next was a notification that the domain status has been requested to be changed to unlocked. Fair enough - they said they'd be unlocking it, and it needs to be unlocked to transfer.

(It's a bit strange that they say "and 1 other" - still to find out what that's about).

Domain status notification

We have received a request that the STATUS be changed to Unlocked on the following domain name(s):

myDomain.com
AND 1 OTHER...

You do not need to respond to this email. If, however, you think this change may have been made in error or fraudulently, please contact us at +1 (480) 366-3700 within 15 days.

Next, a receipt from the domain registrar I'm transferring this to (DreamHost) - that's good.

About 10 minutes later, another message from Workspace. This isn't quite so friendly:

An important notice regarding your transfer

Dear myName,

The request to transfer the following domain name(s) to another registrar has been denied. The domain(s) currently has Private Registration:

myDomain.com

If you still want to transfer the domain(s) to another registrar, you must first cancel your Private Registration(s).

Regards,
Google Workspace
gdomains@secureserver.net

It's really annoying: they knew that lock-status needed to be turned off, and did it. You'd think they'd realise the same thing about Private Registration and just do it. And to be even more annoying, I do recall trying to turn it off, and it wasn't obvious how.

Then another message from Workspace: apparently my not having turned off Private Registration myself counts as "express written objection". That makes sense - yeah ... nah!

Registrar Transfer Denied

Dear Mary Curtin,

The transfer of myDomain.com from Google Workspace to another registrar could not be completed for the following reason(s):

Express written objection to the transfer from the Transfer Contact. (e.g. - email, fax, paper document or other processes by which the Transfer Contact has expressly and voluntarily objected through opt-in means).

If you believe that this domain name does not fit the situation described above, click here for assistance.

Regards,
Google Workspace

And lastly a far more friendly email from DreamHost.

(The real friendliness-test will be when I try again: will they charge me again, or will the fee I've already paid cover it. Update: they're friendly, if the transfer fails, my account is refunded the charge).

Heads up, Mary!

Your domain registration transfer for myDomain.com was unsuccessful.

The reason: Canceled - The current registrar has rejected transfer (please contact them for details).

But all is not lost! You can learn about common issues with domain transfers and how to fix them by checking out our knowledge base.

Need assistance? If you have questions about transferring your domain, please reach out to our support experts.

Thanks!

The Happy DreamHost Domain Registration Transfer Team

Second attempt

I was too tired to try again yesterday, so giving it another go today.

Firstly, heading in to Workspace to turn of Privacy. Note that it's already off. There is another option called Remove Domain Protection. When I look at it, it says:

Your Domain Protection plan protects your domain from hijacking, alerts you when certain high-risk actions are taken on your domain and requires your consent before making these changes. Removing this could expose your domain to these risks.

I don't think this is what caused the first transfer attempt to fail, so didn't remove it - but it's worth keeping in mind.

Then the same routine as yesterday: Sign in to DreamHost, request a transfer, give them the authorization code that GoDaddy / Workspace sent me, and confirm my contact details. Notice that my account was in credit by the amount of yesterday's fees, so that it good: only one tranfer fee to be paid. I clicked "confirm transfer" at about 9:20pm on 7-June. Watch this space for emails!

(The same authcode as yesterday should work: Workspace said "Just so you know, your authcode will expire 30 days after it’s issued for security reasons."- so it's presumably still good to go.)

Update: no failure emails from Workspace this time, but I got a failure message from DreamHost within about 30 minutes.

Third attempt

I decided that before I go down the Remove Protection route, I'd explore the sentence from the last Workspace email "If you believe that this domain name does not fit the situation described above, click here for assistance."

This took me to a page from https://www.secureserver.net/ - which I appear to be logged in to. However it gave very generic advice, and appeared to be geared towards general customers of theirs.

So I decided to remove domain protection. But having done this - I cannot log in to DreamHost at the moment. Arrgh. The frustration. Going to do something totally different, and come back to this tomorrow.

...

It's tomorrow. Dreamhost / Google Authentication still isn't working (maybe it's clear cookes+cache time). But I found my password, and signed in directly.

Started the process again: new login to Workspace then to GoDaddy (which redirects to https://dcc.secureserver.net/). Get the auth code from the, and request a transfer at the DreamHost end. Request submitted 9:02pm. Now to watch the emails again.

Took a bit longer, but it failed again. This time I got the emails from Workspace as well as from DreamHost.

Followed the "If you believe that this domain name does not fit the situation described above, click here for assistance." link - this took me to https://www.secureserver.net/ then I used the tools here to start the transer process, and got articles which sent me to https://dcc.admin.google.com/domains?showAdvanceListView=true&pl_id=412956 - but when I tried, these could not be found. I suspect this is because I live in a country where Google Domains isn't available.

Arrgh.

Fourth attempt

I'm going to wait 48 hours before try again. Will come back to this is a couple of days. Same result

Fifth attempt

Maybe there's a weird issue with this domain - so tried with one of the other I have which is registered through GoDaddy. Went through all the bits above about removing Domain Protection first. Same result.

Now I'm certain it's not me - or that there' something non-obvious. So I emailed GoDaddy's customer service account gdomains@secureserver.net. About 18 hours later I got a response - I'd say it's a question they've heard before. And the answer is:

You need to delete privacy, not just turn it off.

Delete Privacy - To request the cancellation of your privacy for your domain name, you will need to follow the below instructions on the same page as you unlocked the domain.

Near the bottom of the page, click "Remove Domains by Proxy"

Confirm you wish to remove it
You will then receive an email regarding the cancellation. The domain privacy will no longer appear in your account, and the cancellation will not affect any other services on the domain such as DNS or email. Please remember that cancellation of the private registration is not refundable.

Once done, retry your transfer.

They are right, I had overlooked that option - "Remove Domains by Proxy" just didn't register as meaning "Remove domain privacy" - but it does.

The option is there, about 3/4 of the way down the screen:

I did that, and the screen changed to say:

Success - this finally worked.

Side observation

Workspace looks pretty integrated with GoDaddy. Below is what my screen looked like when I was logged into the GoDaddy domain management tools. It's a shame that the transfer from GoDaddy wasn't as smooth as the one from eNom.

Watch this space for updates as I complete this domain and most on to some of my more complicated cases.

Don't want to use Workspace for this domain - two different blogs on the domain.

For a couple of my sites, I have two different blogs hosted on a domain. One is like

myFirstDomain.com
blog.myFirstDomain.com

ie I've got a lot of static comment in a website, accompanied by a news stream style of site which is set up as a blog.

The other one is

myNextDomain.com
myTown.myNextDomain.com

and I'd like to have various others eg otherTown.myNextDomain.com in future if the idea takes off. (Covid has slowed progress a lot, but I think it's an idea with potential).

Both of these have several email addresses attached, so I don't really want to keep them on Workspace, because they just don't make enough money to justify it. (One never will, just because of the audience size / topic, the other might but it would be a lot of work. And I still have a day job).

But I think I want to test this on a safer site first - probably on one on my less popular sites.

I've got a test-blog which I can use: https://myTestBlog.blogspot.com/ (not the real address!) which can be pointed to a custom-domain and there's no harm if anyone accesses it, and little enough content that it's unlikely to cause SEO issues.

So the test is to try to give it a custom domain, and to load the values for that into Dreamhost against an existing domain. Starting in the Blogger Dashboard > Settings > Publishing - and choose Custom domain. Enter blog.myDomain.com and click Save- it was accepted immediately. Now in Dreamhost, add another CNAME record for myDomain, pointing blog to ghs.google.com

Give it "a while" for the changes to propagate - and success, if I navigate to http:\\blog.myDomain.com - I see my test blog. How long is a while? I've noticed before that custom domains managed thru DreamHost seem to take an hour or two to propogate - but I gave it overnight before I checked, just to be sure

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Wednesday, June 8, 2022