Being charged for my Google account

You bought the name, but who is hosting it? There has to be a company that makes it appear online. If you're using a different host, it might be you've got two hosts. For example, the company I work for bought a domain name from GoDaddy, but Verizon is the host. GoDaddy also started billing for the hosting of it, because my company didn't realize that there was a "free" period of hosting, after which they started to bill. So we had one website but two hosts--and double the bill. We canceled the GoDaddy hosting because the Verizon hosting was free with our DSL.

Of course, there's also the possibility that the company billing you is the only host and you are just leaving the free period of the hosting service.

I pay $9.95 per month for my hosting, but I have a ton of pages. Do you get a separate bill from Enom for hosting? There normally is a monthly charge. The lowest I've seen is $3.95 but that's just for a single or five-page size.

Keep in mind, as others have mentioned, there are two separate activities here, and two separate billers.

To own a domain name, you need to buy it. You can buy from a few different supplies, but generally you're going to get it from Network Solutions one way or another. Others can resell the service, but they they go to Network Solutions to reserve the name (generally). Anyone can charge whatever you're willing to pay. Usually the names are sold in yearly increments (you can buy 1-, 2-, 5-, year increments). You can pay that amount any way you and the biller want, but normally those are one-time fees for the time period specified.

Next, you need a host to interpret that name. Usually hosting can include hard drive space, but the primary purpose of the host is to host a name server. The name server tells the Internet (and the world) that when someone types a certain combination of letters (abc.com), that means to go to this computer (10.1.1.1). Your host can point that name to any server you desire (quite literally). You will have to pay for a host to do that, and if that's all the host does, that should be very, very cheap.

Finally, a host can add tons and tons of other services, from just some hard drive space to all sorts of extra programs and features that can run on a web site. This last category can range from a few dollars a month to thousands of dollars, depending on what you want to buy. As with the other options, you can pay monthly or yearly, depending on what you agree to.

In your case, since you're pointing the domain name to a blogspot page, the third category shouldn't apply to you. It sounds like you're indeed paying for the first and second option. As long as you own the domain name, you can always switch your second provider/host. They could indeed charge you $10 a month for the service of being a name server. That does sound excessive to me.

I don't know that Google is in the business of selling domain names... if you can share the domain name with me, I can look it up and see what (public) information there is related to it...

Huh. I guess Google does resell domain names. Is there anything they don't do?

So it looks like Google used enom.com as a reseller agent to purchase the domain name. You're clearly the owner, but strangely your contact e-mail is your hotmail address. The domain currently expires in April of 2015, so it sure looks like you just renewed. I can't see any information about costs or pricing (of course). I would guess the best contact to ask questions about your billing might be [email protected] or maybe calling 4252744500.

enom.com does list some domain name services for $9, $10, and $12 a year... so it does look like that $12 fee you just got will be for the entire next year.

Hope that helps!

Some registrars charge to redirect a domain to anywhere other than their own hosting (if you pointed it to what would otherwise be called "yourdomain.blogspot.com", that's exactly what you're doing with it). If it proves a recurring charge, check to see if that's what it is.

Such services are often free for the first year but charged after that.

Reziac said:

Some registrars charge to redirect a domain to anywhere other than their own hosting (if you pointed it to what would otherwise be called "yourdomain.blogspot.com", that's exactly what you're doing with it). If it proves a recurring charge, check to see if that's what it is.

Such services are often free for the first year but charged after that.

Click to expand...

Blogger/Blogspot don't seem to charge for domain redirects.

This seems a bit odd. There's no chance you've been signed up for Google Apps for Business with Vault, is there? GMail accounts for web domains used to be free (and if they were when you got your domain, they should stay free) but legacy users can still pay for more storage within the Google Apps ecosystem. I'm wondering if something's triggered them into thinking you want one of their chargeable services, but the numbers don't quite add up for that.

ENOM have an "Advanced" hosting package that runs at $12.20 a month (I dunno if that includes taxes, sorry). If your monthly bill is $12.20 then I'd bet ENOM have decided to put you on their monthly hosting plans as well as the separate yearly domain hosting.

For several years you could by a domain via Blogger for $10 per year. It is auto-billed and is annual.

jeffo said:

Huh. I guess Google does resell domain names. Is there anything they don't do?

Click to expand...

Google doesn't really "resell" domain names. They offer you a couple different registrar options that they have relationships with and (usually) let you pick. Most times, when I register a domain name through their process, they've shown me eNom and GoDaddy.

Seun, if your Gmail account is a business account, then yeah, there's a fee for that, which can be billed monthly or yearly. But that's $5 per user (if monthly.)

It sounds, from what I've read so far, that perhaps enom raised your registration fee to the $12 bucks, and it should be for the year, or a service got added.

Good news!

Good good.

Great!