The Great Domain Migration to Namecheap
By Morgan Lucas
Updated: September 4 2024
This is a post intended for this site, as a way to get a feel of using it consistently. Older posts are here.
Google Domains is being sold to Squarespace and as of September 2023, they now own the domains bought by Google -- To the annoyed groans of many around the world, myself included.
The following is the same post created in September 2023 with a few minor changes.
Word spread on Twitter (I will not call it X) on how Squarespace was often a costlier option for people. I don't remember exact numbers people had experience with, but it was more. 36$/yr sticks in my head, but check for yourself.
With a domain costing 12$ through Google, I thought above making the choice to transfer myself; and after perusing this Twitter thread, decided to go with Namecheap on a whim.
The Good
With a domain costing 12$ through Google, I thought above making the choice to transfer myself; and after perusing this Twitter thread, decided to go with Namecheap on a whim.
I didn't know there were so many choices to host domains, DNS options, email services. That would actually be a field of interest to own a business in. It has that old internet charm (robot text anyone?).
Now, that original site is hosted on Blogger, which is owned (and ignored) by Google, so it probably isn't being killed anytime soon (I hope). Google Domains was owned by, well, Google, so attaching the domain to the site was quite easy.
I even had email forwarding.
I transferred to Namecheap with minimal issues, and that's where things get annoying. To be clear, Namecheap did nothing wrong, though, based upon Trustpilot reviews, I think our business begins and ends with simply owning my domain.
The Domain's The Thing
Everyone at Namecheap was helpful and patient!
I forgot about the rigamarole of putting in CNAME records, A records into a domain registrar to point things in the right direction -- and Blogger doesn't make it easy to find.
It should appear when you put in a domain name. But if you already have it there, what then? I changed the domain to a nonexistent one to get the CNAME records, but those were apparently not accurate.
When I used Google Search Console, it said I didn't own the domain -- it had passed into the whoisregistrar and the info was hidden, a setting on Namecheap.
An email had escaped my notice to confirm the domain was mine, so that was easily solved.
A semi-new feature is browsers automatically using https to connect you to websites that allow it. I had to (re?) allow this feature on Blogger, or secure connections couldn't visit.
While Google may have abandoned the Blogger Project, The Blogger help community is being kept alive by one good person over here, in my topic.
Conclusion
Everything is pointed in the right direction, although if I plan to repoint the domain to this site, who knows what may happen next.
An August 2024 Update
As you may have noticed, I did indeed redirect the url runtcpip.com to point to this website instead of my Blogger site.
Why?
Despite both Blogger and Google Sites being owned by Alphabet/Google, Sites is actually maintained.
Google Sites has better security posture and features.
It looks more modern, and has multiple pages.
I'm 89% sure the SEO is already built in and works better.
I didn't have to finangle with attaching Analytics
It was a much smoother process than expected!