Blogging Problems - How My Blog Disappeared for a Week!

{This photo is supposed to represent me tearing my hair out - is it effective?}

OK - I'm not going to lie. This last week has been really frustrating. {Cue the Psycho music here.} One day when I went to check on my blog it was GONE. Well, not really
 . . .  but it seemed to be GONE! {If you tried to visit me during that time, I apologize for any inconvenience.}

After lots of weeping, wailing, & gnashing of teeth - I discovered the reason. If you have a  nameofyourbloghere.blogspot.com, this probably won't happen to you. But I changed to my own url {michellelunt.com} a year ago. Everything has been peachy until it was time for my domain name registration to renew. Apparently Google is going through some changes & honestly - I think I got caught in the middle of the vortex of it all. I'm writing this post to help others with similar issues.

Here's what I learned:

• If you get a message that you need to update your credit card information, start working on it right away! You might have issues getting to the right place to accomplish this.
• There is a Google "Administrator Panel" that I had a dickens of a time finding. It also has a different password than your blog/or other Google stuff. To sign into it try: google.com/a/yourdomainname.com {I'm sure you caught on that you insert your own name where it says: "yourdomainname" - such as michellelunt.com.} You may need help getting a password for this - see next step.
• Keep "Googling" your issue! When I did, I finally stumbled upon a way to email Google & ask for help. 
• Once we solved the domain name renewal issue, my blog would not redirect to my ".com" url. So-o-o this required logging in to my "enom" account. 
• Be patient.  This step comes very naturally to me . . . NOT! The Google reps that I emailed were on the other side of the world, so usually I would send a message - wait a day - get a message, etc. I also got two phone calls from Google employees in Ireland - they had awesome accents, so there's a silver lining! 
• Most of all - your blog is probably not really gone. Mine was there all the while - we just couldn't get to it. Don't panic.