I have been doing tons of reading to figure this out. I have read we should be connecting to blynk-cloud.com and not cloud.blynk.cc but even though I am running the latest libraries 0.5.0 in Arduino 1.8.5 it still connects to cloud.blynk.cc. Is this ok or am I missing something?
Does your sketch work? Both blynk-cloud.com and cloud.blynk.cc points to the same IP so it might work regardless.
How have you defined Blynk.begin(auth) in your void setup()?
Yes it seems to to work just fine. I was just basing my comment on an announcement not to use cloud.blynk.cc
If both work then great.
Things change and some older methods will work for awhile due to backward compatibility… but it is still prefered to use the latest recommended official methods… in this case blynk-cloud.com
If the preferred method is to connect to blynk-cloud.com then why do to the libraries default to cloud.blynk.cc?
Sounds like you have a very old library.
Also seems like your search-fu is weak 
As per my original post, version 0.5.0 is the latest library available…
I saw the announcement you are referring to and is why I am asking in the first place.
If library 0.5.0 isnt the most recent then what is the latest?
Lets try this another way… show us EXACTLY where you see cloud.blynk.cc
You probably have some old files left over… As recommended all over this forum, you should completely remove all Blynk Libraries and MANUALLY install the latest (at time of this post that is 0.5.0).
Yes, I deleted both the library and tools directory and installed Blynk 0.5.0 from the GitHub repository. Although I haven’t been using Blynk long I am not unfamiliar with forum etiquette and only asking question when I am stumped. I do appreciate the help and it must be something I am doing wrong as nobody else seems to be experiencing this.
I see cloud.blynk.cc in the serial monitor, here is a snippet:
local ip: 192.168.1.143
[6029] Connecting to cloud.blynk.cc:8442
wifi status: 3
blynk status: 0
Humidity: 22.60%
Temperature: 21.80 *C
[11030] Connecting to cloud.blynk.cc:8442
[11212] Ready (ping: 94ms).
Have you actually compiled and loaded a current sketch, with new library, into the suspect device?
Just having it loaded in your PC doesn’t mean anything if you are still running an old sketch in a device.
I am a bit surprised it is even connecting… past issues were based on that old URL NOT working until the user updated… 
Yes, I have certainly compiled and loaded new sketches.
However…something triggered for me. I did a search for BlynkSimpleEsp8266.h in the libraries folder and discovered that the Cayenne libraries have a copy of an old Blynk library and it seems that was the version the Arduino IDE was using. I switched from Cayenne to Blynk as Cayenne was super buggy. I removed the cayenne libraries, recompiled and voila…now connecting to blynk-cloud.com.
So for anyone else who has Cayenne libraries installed this could be your problem as well.
Thanks for you help and patience @Gunner!
I keep forgetting that was ever around… I only ever stumble across it when it causes issues here 
I wonder if you have been connecting to their server all this time? Doesn’t make sense what with being able to log into the proper one with presumably same credentials… unless you actually created same account on both… but then your App would be connecting to Blynk, but your device to Cayenne?? Oh my head hurts 
Cayenne has now been eradicated…many wasted hours…