Ah, Gmail. The darling of free email. The inbox of the masses. The place where your cousin’s cat photos, your dentist’s appointment reminders, and your two-factor codes all live in chaotic harmony. For personal use? Sure, it’s fine. But if you’re thinking of hosting your business domain with Google Workspace, grab a helmet and a stress ball—because when things go wrong, they go Google-wrong.
Let’s be clear: Gmail is a marvel of engineering. It filters spam like a ninja, syncs across devices like magic, and has a search function that’s only slightly worse than asking your dog to find the very last biscuit at the bottom of the treat bag.
But when you attach your business domain to it—say, you@yourcompany.com—you’re entering a realm where the stakes are higher and the support is… theoretical.
Support? Only If You’re a Fortune 500 or a Jedi.
Google’s idea of support is a sprawling maze of help articles written in the tone of a robot trying to sound empathetic. If your domain gets suspended, your inbox disappears, or your MX records decide to go on strike, you’ll be greeted with:
A chatbot named “Google Assistant” that’s about as helpful as a paperclip in a thunderstorm.
A support form that asks you to describe your issue in 500 characters and then vanishes into the void never to be answered.
A promise that “someone will get back to you,” which is code for “we’ve added your concern to our digital compost heap.”
Telephone support? Ha. Unless you’re paying for the Enterprise plan and have a direct line to Sundar Pichai’s barista, you’re not getting a call. Your business could be bleeding emails, and Google’s response will be a cheerful link to a help article last updated in 2017.
Hosting your business email with Google means handing over the keys to your digital kingdom. If Google decides your account violated a policy—maybe a misconfigured SPF record or an overzealous spam filter—you can be locked out faster than you can say “vendor lock-in.”
And good luck proving your innocence. The appeals process is like trying to get a refund from a vending machine.
Use Gmail for personal stuff. It’s great for newsletters, memes, and your aunt’s conspiracy theories.
Host your business domain with a provider that offers actual human support, like Flat Gecko Design here in Canberra.
Any business that offers support in the form of bots and on-line help amounts to not offering support at all. If, after you’ve tried a troubleshooting article, there is no actual phone number to call at the end of it…don’t use the service.
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