The last few days have been an emotional rollercoaster. Over a week ago, my entire blog was deleted, due to a failed monthly payment to my hosting service GoDaddy. Usually the payment is automated, but my debit card had been compromised so I was waiting for a new one to take effect.
By the time I learned the payment had failed, my blog had been deleted in its entirety, and I was told by a GoDaddy rep that getting it back would be impossible; it was lost in the cyber-void and there was absolutely nothing they could do, especially since the problem was due to a payment failure, which made it an \”expired account.\”
Having my blog pulled from cyberspace felt painfully personal, like I had just had every one of my teeth extracted. My blog has a history, having followed me through many moods and life events, plus it contains many comments from readers that I treasure. My blog is my online identity. Now everything was erased, and I had never even been told my blog was in danger.
I tweeted about the obliteration of my blog, and a GoDaddy rep on Twitter offered to help until he learned that the deletion was due to a “failed payment.” At that point, he essentially reiterated what the first representative had told me: Sorry.
Although the news was disappointing, I only felt the full impact of my loss on Tuesday when I posted my new blog entry. No one responded with likes or comments the way they usually do. The reality was impossible to ignore. My follower list had been erased.
While I could replace my hundred plus posts, which I had been struggling to do using a website called \”The Way Back Machine,” rebuilding my following was going to be something else entirely.
On Tuesday night, feeling frustrated and angry, I posted a blog entry describing what had happened to my blog. It was titled, “A Brief Note About GoDaddy Deleting My Blog and Erasing My Followers.” I shared it with my 38,000 Twitter followers.
At first the tweet went nowhere, but ten minutes later, I came back and saw that a few people had retweeted it. Later I checked again and was astonished; within less than an hour the post had been retweeted 50 times. The GoDaddy rep I had spoken to before contacted me and this time offered to try restoring my blog, suggesting that a restore attempt had been previously tried but had failed. I agreed to let him try — and it worked.
My relief was immeasurable. I felt like I had just learned that a beloved pet I thought had died was actually still alive.
While I am thrilled to have my blog back, I am also grateful to my Twitter followers for sharing my post. I have no doubt that it is because of all the shares that my problem received the attention it did, so to everyone who retweeted it, thank you!!
Unfortunately, due to my situation, my posting has been inconsistent lately, but now that the cyber-tempest has passed I am looking forward to resuming my regular posting schedule. Until then, I will be writing. And backing up my blog.
A lot.