Blogging Wikipedia

Using a custom domain for something other than your Blogger blog

By: Unknown on 5:47:00 AM / comment : 0 Article, Custom Domains

This article is about how you can use a custom domain that was purchased through Google / Blogger for something other than a Blogger blog.




Blogger makes it very easy for you to buy a "custom" domain name (ie URL) for your blog.   Instead of being www.fred-fish.blogspot.com, you can easily be www.fred-fish.com - which is more appealing for all sorts of reasons.

Blogger tells you which domain registrar they're going to use and lets you change to the other one if you want to.  Apart from this, Google hides most of the "technical" domain registration details from you:  you are invited to set up a domain administrator account (in Google Apps), but even this is optional.  

But there may come a time when you want to use your domain for more than just a blog:  eg, Fred may want to use www.fred-fish.com to sell fishing trips or as the public gateway to a massive database of fishing achievements, neither of which are functions that Blogger (easily) provides.

To use a Google-Blogger purchased domain for something other than a Blogspot blig, you need to:

• Move your blog away from the domain
  (you might move it use a subdomain or virtual host off the domain later on - but the first step is just to free up the domain for other use.
• Change the domain-name-server settings for the domain to point to the right place for the "something else" that you want to use it for.

Even though you purchased the domain using Blogger, your access to it is through the Google Apps control panel: from there you get the login details for the domain registrar (currently either goDaddy or eNom that Google used to buy the domain).

How to re-use your domain

Unlink the domain from your blog:

1  Log in to Blogger with the account that owns the domain.

2  From the Dashboard, choose   Settings > Basic > Publishing and click the cross on the right of the Edit link beside your blog name.





This changes your blog back to www.YOUR-BLOG-NAME.blogspot.com, and removes the DNS records that pointed your blog to your custom-URL.

It may take a few hours (I've heard 72) for these changes to apply to computers all around the world, so people who go to your custom domain may still get re-directed to your blog for a day or two.

Also, Google (and other search engines) will still have indexed links to your blog contents at your custom domain.  These will gradually be replaced when

• you put new content at your custom domain and 
• it gets indexed by the search engines and 
• the new content-indexing replaces data in the cached Google results in various computers around the world.

This can take some weeks, though, so your blog may miss out one some search traffic, and people who search for your new site may see odd results in their search list.

Next - link the domain to what you want it to show

3  Find, or create, the domain administrator login details for your domain:

I've previously described how to set up the domain administrator for your domain.

• If you haven't done this already, you need to find the relevant email and set up the account now.   
• If you have done it, you need to remember the administrator login and password that you created.
• If you cannot remember the administrator details, then go to  https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME/ForgotAdminAccountInfo - put in the right value for your domain name, without www.  or http:// at the start.    Enter the captcha details, and if you have set up an administrator account the details will be emailed to your backup secondary address. 
• If you never created an administrator account and cannot find the email to do it now, use this help-process.  Choose:
  - I never created an administrator account, then
  - I signed up at Google.com/a and purchased a domain name at the same time
  
  You can only use the help-process after you have un-linked your blog from the domain (ie steps 1-2 above plus left time for the change to be applied to Google's servers - somewhere between a few minutes and a few hours seems to work).  If you try to use it while your blog is still using the domain, you end up being directed back to Blogger.

Note:   if none of these processes help you get control of your domain administrator, check the resources in this article from Nitecruzr about the topic.

4  Go to https://www.google.com/a/YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME/

5  Log in with the admin account and password from Step 3.

6  Go to the Domain Settings tab

7  Go to the Domain Names sub-tab

8  Choose the Advanced DNS settings link.

This opens a screen that shows you how to get into the DNS console for your domain.   It typically has

• Your domain-registrar sign-in name and password,  
• Your domain-registrar customer service PIN - in case you need to contact the registrar's customer services, 
• Contact details for the domain registrar's customer service department  
• A link that you can use to get to the to DNS console

9  Log in to the DNS Console, using the details from step 9.

10  Follow the directions there to make the domain changes.

The steps required depend totally on what you are using the domain for:  for help with this, contact the the technical support forum (or whatever) for the product that's being used to build the new contents of your domain.


If you need more help, check out the Google Apps help forum.

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Where to find more information

Automatically renewing your custom domain

Transferring ownership of your blog to another Google account

Blogger and other Google products - an overview

Recovering control of your custom domain (external link)

Look at the receipients of the "registration will renew automatically in X days" email to work out your domain-administration login name

By: Unknown on 4:19:00 PM / comment : 0 Custom Domains

This article is about how you can work out what Google Account to use to check custom domain renewal details from the reminder emails that Google sends in the month before the domain registration expires.

Domain registration warning emails

If you have a custom domain that you purchased through Blogger (when that service was available), and you have not transferred that registration to another domain registrar, then every year you will get a series of email messages like this:





The message text is:

Hello, Your domain name, yourDomain.com, is configured for automatic renewal with registrar REGISTRAR (usually enom or goDaddy) on DATE. Each registration renewal is valid for one year. Google will charge your account after the renewal is complete. To ensure uninterrupted service, please follow these directions to update your payment method if needed. If you don�t want to renew your domain name and continue using Google Apps, you should turn off automatic renewal under the �Domain settings > Domain names� tab in your Google Apps Admin console at http://admin.google.com. Please do not reply to this email; replies are not monitored.

What you need to do

The specific action that you need to do varies, according to what you have set up before, and what policy changes Google may have had.

• You may need to verify that you accept the current billing arrangements. 
• You may need to check that the credit card which you have registered on your account is still valid (even if it was previously, it may have retired since).
• You may even want to cancel the renewal, and thus give up the custom domain (in which case, I'd suggest re-directing your blog back to blogspot, too).

The only way to check what is required is to log on to your Google Apps Domain Administration account, and see what it tells you to do.

And pretty much the only thing you should not do is nothing:  you almost certainly either need to check your credit card, or cancel the renewal.

How to log on to your Google Apps Domain Administration account

What account to log on to

Many people say that working out what Domain Administrator account they need to log in to is difficult - and some are (mistakenly) absolutely convinced that they were able to renew previously using only the Google account that they use to manage the blog.

Unfortunately, the name of the Domain Administrator account can vary, depending on when you purchased the domain and whether or not you set up an administrator account for it at that time.

But, based on the reminder message that Google are now sending, there is a simple way to work it out:  look at the addresses that the reminder email is sent to.  What I have noticed lately is that these are:

1. The Domain Administrator account, and 
2. The Blogger account that set up the blog

Once you clearly understand that:

• The Domain Administrator is not the same as your Blogger account, 
• The Domain Administrator probably has an account-name like    bloggeradmin@YourDomain.com   or    your-admin-name@YourDomain.com

then hopefully this will be enough to help you understand which account you need to use.

Then log on - adding the account to your list

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Related Articles:

Setting up your custom domain

Understanding Google and Blogger accounts

How to re-direct an old custom domain - and all its posts - to a new one

By: Unknown on 12:18:00 PM / comment : 0 Article, Custom Domains, SEO

This article describes options for making link to a blog's old URL automatically point to the blog's new URL after a custom domain change.



If you have a blog made with Blogger which has a custom domain, then it's easy enough to switch this blog to use a different domain. Doing this moves both the content (posts and pages) and template (layout, structure, colour-scheme).

Often when people make this type of change, they want to set up re-directs so that if anyone clicks an external link to the old custom domain, they are re-directed to the same content on the new domain.
For example, www.old-domain.com/current-Page.html should redirect to www.new-domain.com/current-page.html.)

With many other website building tools, the .htaccess file for the site lets you set up re-directs like this. But things are little different when you use Blogger.

Your Blogspot address VS your custom domain

Your blog always has a blogspot addresss - let's call it: www.yourBlog.blogspot.com

When you publish to a custom domain, Blogger automatically handles the re-direction from www.yourBlog.blogspot.com to www.yourCustomdomain.com for you. This works at all levels, so the home page and every individual post/page are all redirected correctly.

To move your blog from from www.yourCustomDomain.com to www.newCustomDomain.com, you simply tell Blogger to

1. Stop publishing your blog to www.oldCustomDomain.com and then to
2. Start publishing it to www.newCustomDomain.com

(See Switching your blog to a different custom domain for more information about this.)

Once you have done this (and afer a little bit of transition time), Blogger handles the re-direction from www.yourBlog.blogspot.com to www.newCustomdomain.com for you - as before, this works at all levels, so the home page and every individual post/page are redirected correctly.

One point that many people mis-understand, is that after you have done this, there is no connection between Blogger and your old custom domain. You have various options (listed below) for what to do with www.oldCustomDomain.com - and you aren't limited to the features that Blogger offers. The only limits are based on what your domain registrar allows, and what tools you can (learn to) use.

Options for re-directing your old custom domain

Option 1: Registrar re-direction

Once you have stopped publishing your blog to www.yourCustomDomain.com, Blogger has no connection with it at all.

How you manage re-directions from it is totally up to the tools provided by the domain registrar. The simplest approach is to set up a "301 redirect" on the domain, which simply sends all traffic to it to another domain of your choice.

The method for setting this up depends on the tools used by your domain registrar - search their help files for terms like "301 redirect" to find out what is possible with tools.

See Using a custom domain for something other than your blog for advice about accessing your domain registrar account for the domain.

Advantages

• This is the easiest approach, and doesn't require you to make a website of any type.
• Visitors are automatically re-directed.

Disadvantages

• Depending on how the registrar's tools work, visitors may be automatically redirected to your new home page, not the the post that they specifically followed a link to.

Option 2: Another website tool

If you know how to use another website development tool that does provide access to the .htaccess file for the site, then you could make a "site" that just contains page-and-post level redirections for all your existing posts and pages.

Advantages

• This approach sends people to the exact content that they followed a link to.

Disadvantages

• It could be tedious setting this up for every post and page, if you have a lot of them at the time when you change domains.
• You need to choose and learn a very different type of website building tool to do this.

Option 3: use Blogger to make a site-level re-direction message

Make a totally new blog (eg    www.myBlogHasMoved.blogspot.com),

Publish it to your old custom domain

Give it one post that says

"www.oldCustomDomain.com has moved to www.newCustomDomain.com please update your links"

Use the Settings > Search preferences > Errors and redirections > Custom Redirect Custom Page Not Found  option to explain that your blog has moved, and send any traffic to that one post.

Advantages

• This is a simple approach, using tools that you already know.
• It will work forever (because blogspot domains don't expire).

Disadvantages

• Visitors will not be automatically redirected: the best you can do is show a link which goes to a selected post or page in your blog, which the visitor needs to click to go to the blog.
• The re-direction link is only to one specific page, not to the exact content that was linked to iniitially.  This is quite different from what many people want to achieve - blogger simply does not have that functionality.

A non-option: Blogger's custom redirect tool

Blogger has a function under Settings > Search preferences > Errors and redirections > Custom Redirects  that lets you set up custom redirects for individual pages.

However this isn't suitable when you change your custom-domain totally, because it only supports re-direction within the same blog, not to an external URL.

(And anyway, if you have a significant number of posts, it would not be practical.)

Other options

Have you found any other ways around this? Or any good tool for setting up .htaccess redirects on a domain that you used to use for a blog?  Share your experience in the comments area below.

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Related Articles:

Using a custom domain for something other than your blog

Linking your blog and your website.

How to make a real website using Blogger

Switching your blog to a different custom domain

SEO Basics for Bloggers

What "Another blog or Google Site is already using this address" really means

By: Unknown on 8:32:00 AM / comment : 0 Custom Domains, Help

This article explains what "Another blog or Google Site is already using this address" means when you see it while setting up a custom domain for your blog - and what you can do to fix it.

What is a custom domain

A custom domain is a "real" website address, instead of the free one that you get when you first set up a blog using Blogger.   It's one of he essential steps if you want to use Blogger to make a "real" website.   For example:

• You initially set up    www.yourBusiness.blogspot.com
• Then you hear that people will treat you with more respect if you have www.yourBusiness.com  or www.yourBusiness.co.uk. 

In this case, www.yourBusiness.com  and   www.yourBusiness.co.uk   are both "custom domains", ie web-addressed without "blogspot.com" or "wordpress.com" at the end of the address.

To use www.yourBusiness.com, you need to either use Blogger's custom domain wizard - available under Settings > Basic > Publshing +Buy a custom domain.

To use www.yourBusiness.co.uk   (or any other type of URL that Blogger doesn't offer), you need to firstly buy the URL from another domain registrar, and then use a similar procedure to use that URL for your blog.

Sometimes things go wrong

If you're lucky - and most people are - then setting up your blog to use your custom domain is a smooth process:   there are a few minutes where your new address doesn't quite work for you, and a few hours while it doesn't work for people around the works.   But the computers all catch up with each other fairly quickly and within 24-72 hours it's working perfectly.

But sometimes things go wrong - and that is when you see this message in one of Blogger's screens:

Another blog or Google Site is already using this address

Mostly (pretty much always, in fact), this doesn't mean that another blog is using the address that you just paid $10 for.

What it means is that something has gone wrong with the process of setting up the domain for your blog.   Nothing more, and nothing less.

You can check this by looking at what happens when you try to navigate to the address.   Most probably you will see something like this:




That's what I see using Google Chrome - other browsers will display it a little differently, and Google may change the picture from time to tile.   But the key part is the "404" error code, which says that there is no website currently using the address.

How to fix it

The Masterclass:

Chuck from Nitecruzr.net has recently published a comprehensive article about the various sources of this message, and how to fix it.    As he explains, it's not so much an error message as a symptom.   Basically, it's Blogger's way of saying "there's a problem with your URL setup".

His post may look daunting at first; there's a lot of technical language, and you need to delve into all sorts of places you may not have looked before, including setting up an administrator account for your domain in the registrar. And just to make it more complicated, Google changed they way that they offer domains (by removing free single-user accounts in Google Apps) in January 2013, so now it also depends on when you purchased the domain, too.   But it's worth trying to work out the problem, and its solution yourself, before asking for help (see below). You will learn about how Blogger works with custom domains, and it stops the help-forum people being overloaded with questions.

Methods that used to work

When I've had this problem in the past, the first thing I did was to check that Google Sites was disabled on my Apps account. This was easy, and often effective, but I suspect it's not so relevant any more.

Another older approach was to enter the custom-domain into the Magical Custom Domain Form, and wait 48 hours to see if Google have fixed it. In the background, the Google staff would check domain settings and fix up problems if they could. However it looks like that process isn't supported any more: clicking the link now brings up a message

We're sorry.The form at this URL could not be found. Make sure that you have the right URL and that the owner of the form hasn't deleted it. 

Asking for help

If you really cannot work out a solution, then post a question in the Blogger Product Forum - I usually use the "How do I" category.    Include:

• Your blog's URL     (eg   yourBusiness.blogspot.com)
• The URL you are trying to use   (eg yourBusiness.com or yourBusiness.co.uk)
• Whether you bought the URL thru Blogger, or from another domain registrar
• Details of all error messages you are seeing

Post the details into a new question (use the big red "Post a Question")button - don't try to hijack someone else's question, because their problem and solution will probably be different, for this particular error message.

Make sure your question has a meaningful title   (eg  "Custom domain - another blog or site is hosted"):   many helpers don't read questions with generic titles like "help" which don't give any clues about what skills are needed to answer the question.

If your question doesn't get answered in a day or two, post an update in the same thread - even something as simple as the word "bump" will take your question up to the top of the pile again, and tell the helpers that you are actively looking for help with the problem.

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Related Articles

Using Blogger to make a proper website

Using a website address from another domain registrar for your blog

Setting up an administrator for a custom domain purchased through Blogger

Using an URL from domainDiscount24 for a blog

By: Unknown on 8:30:00 AM / comment : 0 Article, Custom Domains, Domain registrars, Google Apps

This article shows Blogger users, who have purchased a domain through Google Apps using domainDiscount24 (dd24.com), how to set up the 2nd CNAME statement that is needed by  Blogger's custom-domain verification step. 

Most of the information also applies to any who purchased a domain from Key Systems / DomainDiscount24 / dd24 and wants to use it for a Blogger blog.

Why buy a custom domain from Google Apps

A while ago, I noted that Google Apps now provide the ability to buy a range of domains not available via Blogger - for example co.nz (New Zealand), .com.es (Spain), .in (India), .de (Germany) -and many more.

Although they advertising that pricing is "from $US8", when I finally used Apps to buy my co.nz domain, the actual cost was $US20. C'est la vie.   And besides, anything to make the setup-process easier is welcome - and this is a feature of domains purchased using Google Apps.

One good thing that I noticed about buying a domain via Apps is that you set up a domain-administrator account as part of the process.  Though it's a bit more "technical" than many Bloggers are used to, it's better to have the admin account set up to start with, instead of having to try to find it when you want to check the settings, access the email that comes with your domain, or use the URL for some other type of website.

Also, after the domain administrator account was set up, the details for logging on to my registrar account were emailed to me.   This is a nice touch - it's possible to get the details from the domain-administrator account, but having them at hand during the setup process was handy.

What happens when you buy a domain through Google Apps for your blog

Google are partnering with several domain registrars for domains registered via Apps, and my one came from domainDiscount24 (dd24.com) - which is actually the brand-name of a German company called Key Systems.   I was a little concerned at first, about whether this would work with Blogger - but my fears were soon put to rest.


This isn't exactly what you need, but it's a good start:

• The CNAME for the www "sub-domain" was pointed to  ghs.google.com - which is what Blogger needs.
• The ANAME records that were set up had the correct values, as per Blogger's requirements.

So the only challenge is setting up the second CNAME record that is now part of the security verification for switching to a custom domain.

How to set up a 2nd CNAME record for a domain from domainDiscount24

In domainDicsount24 term, this is done by creating another sub-domain that is named after the host-value from Blogger's instrutions, and giving it a txt record with the 2nd value.
(NB  I think that technically  you are not actually creating a "real" subdomain - but that's the phrase that DD24 used to describe what needs to be done.)

Follow these steps

1   Log on to the dd24.com website with the account information (get this from the Google Apps> Domains> Advanced Settings tab - or from the email that they sent you after you set up the administrator account.)

2  Click on the domain name

3  In the upper right is a drop down menu where you can access and create all sub-domains for your domain name (I was using a netbook so had to scroll to see it)

4  Choose Create New Subdomain from this menu,

5  Enter the "Name, Label or Host" field value from Blogger.  
(See Using a domain purchased from another registrar if you're unsure where to get this information from Blogger - remember that it's specific to your blog, and each pair of values is valid for around 24 hours.)

6  Click Create Subdomain.

7  In the window that opens, specify the settings:

• Put the "Destination, Target or Point to" value from Blogger into the field called CName.
• Under DNS settings, leave Source set to "Not in use"
• Under Mail settings, leave Source set to "Not in use"

8  Save the dns settings, by clicking Verify Changes.


Job done - at this point, your second CNAME has been created, and you can log out from the domainDiscount24 site and go back to Blogger to continue he custom domain setup there, as described in Using a domain purchased from another registrar.

domainDiscount24 warn that, as always, may take several hours until DNS changes take effect - however recently I was able to re-direct my blog to the custom domain within Blogger almost immediately.

The only additional step that I needed to do was use the Apps dashboard to make the web-address work without having www at the front (Blogger has this option to tick, but it appeared not to be working.)

And I was pleased to notice that, after the domain purchase had verified properly, I did not have to enable  accounts from my custom domain to use Blogger - it was turned on by default.   (This didn't happen immediately, there was a time delay while the Google Apps purchase was verified.   But it did work eventually).

About domainDiscount24

Of course I didn't work this out myself - I had to get help from domainDiscount24 to figure out how to do the 2nd CNAME record, since the word "cname" wasn't on the front of the domain management tool for my domain.

They don't seem to have on-line help articles.

But when I clicked their Help button:

• I was sent to a nice web-form where I could submit my question. 
• An answer arrived within 3-4 hours (even though I'd sent my query at 1am, German time).
• The answer was correct - and it showed that they clearly understood the question, had checked what was set up so far.

So overall, I'm a happy customer, and now I just need to work on building my new site.

And I think I'll keep domainDiscount24 in mind if I'm looking to buy more domains in the future, including some of the ones that Google Apps doesn't provide access to as yet.

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Related Articles

Google Apps now provide the ability to buy a range of domains not available via Blogger

Using a domain from another registrar for your blog

Making custom domains work without having www at the front

Allowing custom domain users to access Google's Blogger - the website making tool for the rest of us

Making custom domains work without the www at the start

By: Unknown on 12:45:00 PM / comment : 0 Custom Domains, Quick-tips

This Quick-Tip is about an issue that some people have had with their "naked" custom domain not re-directing to the www-at-the-start version, and how to fix it using a feature in your Google Apps account.

Since Blogger released their initial fix to the custom-domain mapping problem of mid-September 2012, some people have found that it's not possible to set up the custom domain so that my-domain.xxx works as well as www.my-domain.xxx does.

There is an option for this in Blogger's Settings > Publishing area.  But last night, when I set up a "subdomain" style entry for news.my-domain.xxx and directed my latest-updates blog from my-domain.blogspot.com to news.my-domain.com, found that this didn't work.
(Obviously I didn't use my-domain.com - but the principle applies.)

However today I found an approach that does seem to fix this:

1   Log in to the Google Apps domain administration account (the same one you used to set up the 2nd CNAME record - if you don't know how to get into it, some of the information here may help)

2   Go to Domain Settings > Domain Names, a

3   Sroll down to where it says:  Redirect the naked domain (http://YOUR-DOMAIN.INFO) to ... (whatever it says now)

4   Click the Change Redirect link under this.

5   Make sure that www (lower case) is entered in the field.

6   Click save.


I cannot guarantee that this will always fix the problem.   But it did for me just now, and I've seen a couple of other posters saying that it helped them too.    So I thought it was worth sharing.

Using a domain purchased from another domain registrar or blogging-platform for your Blogger blog

By: Unknown on 1:51:00 PM / comment : 0 Article, Custom Domains

This article is about how to use a domain (URL) that was purchased outside of Blogger / Google as the custom-domain for your blog.
 

Blogger and custom domains

Until September 2012, the easiest way to give your Blogger blog a custom domain was to pick an URL that is currently available and purchase it through the Settings > Publishing  tab.   If that is s successful, all you needed to do was set up an administrator account for your domain.

But sometimes the URL you want will not be available through Google / Blogger:

• Maybe it's owned by someone else
• Maybe you own it  already, because you purchased it through another domain registrar.  
• Maybe you don't have a credit-card so cannot purchase through  Google.  
• Maybe it's for a country that Blogger doesn't sell domains for (eg Ireland).
• Maybe it's now well after September 2012, and Blogger have not re-introduced this service - and don't look likely to do so.

In these cases, you can't use Blogger to manage the domain.  Instead, you need to buy it another way - or get control of it if someone else already owns it.

Then after you own the domain, you need to set it up with the correct settings to work with Blogger.   To do this, you need to use the settings information that Blogger provides and the domain management tools (usually a control panel, aka CPanel) provided by your domain registrar.

What to get if you are buying a domain from a registrar

If you need to (or already have) obtained them domain name through a domain registrar, you need to  purchase both:

• Name registration, and 
• DNS Hosting

You do not need to purchase file-hosting from them, because Blogger provides this for our blogs.

There are some registrars that don't offer domain hosting separately from other hosting packages.   In this case, it's your choice whether to use this company or to use another one.   There is no harm in purchasing file hosting that you are are not going to use - except that it's a waste of money.

If you find that your registrar doesn't offer DNS Hosting at all (unlikely) or that you don't want to pay the fee that the charge (which may be quite high if they only sell it with file hosting), then you need to transfer the domain to another registrar (which does offer DNS hosting) before you can use it for your blog.

Setting up a domain for your blog

Once you have control of the URL, follow these steps to set up your blog on it:

Go into www.Blogger.com.

In  Settings > Basic >  Publishing > + Add a custom domain >  Switch to Custom Domain > 

1. Fill in your domain name, then
2. Click Settings instructions
3. If you are told "You have unsaved changes that will be lost.   Leave this page anyway"  (or similar) - choose OK / Leave this page.

This opens a page of instructions which contains the values you need to use in the next step.

At the top of the page, you are asked the following question.

Where would you like to host your blog?

•  On a top-level domain (www.example.com).

•  On a subdomain (foo.example.com).

If you don't understand this, just click on the top-level-domain option.   (If you do understand it, you don't need me to tell you which option to choose!)



2)    In the domain-management tool for your domain, set up the DNS records (ie CNAME and AName records), using the values from the page that is opened.

The way of setting up the domain records is different for every registrar.  You may need to read the help file, or ask the domain registrar's customer services department for help.   Or, if your domain registrar is GoDaddy, then this tool makes it especially easy.  (That said - at the moment it is not setting up the 2nd CNAME record for you - still need to do it yourself.)

You need to setup up two CNAME records.

• The first CNAME record should have your domain URL and ghs.google.com
• The values for the second CNAME record are buried in the text of the instructions page - I've underlined them in the following picture to help you find them.   (Hopefully Blogger will make this easier to read soon.)

You also need to set up four ANAME records - see further down in Google's instructions page for the values to use for these.


Wait an hour, and then go into www.Blogger.com again   (NB  you may not need to wait the full hour, but it's safer).  
NB   If you wait too long, then the 2nd CNAME combination that Google gave you will have expired, and you will have to do that step again,    So I'd suggest waiting an hour, and no more.


In Blogger, go to  Settings > Basic > Publishing > + Add a custom domain >  Switch to Custom Domain > 

• Fill in your domain name (yes, again).
• Click Save (just under the pane)

If get a message

We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 32. Please follow the settings instructions.

then you did not get the set-up in correct in your domain-registrar (or maybe you haven't waited long enough - or waited too long!)


If you do not see that message, then your re-direction was successful.   However you may need to allow a bit of time (maybe a few minutes, maybe as long as three days) for the changes to take effect.

Test whether they have been applied by typing your custom-domain into a web-browser:  you should be taken to your Blogger blog.

Ask for help if you need it:

There are many things that can go wrong when you are setting up a custom domain, and error messages like "Another blog is already hosted at this address" are quite common.

If the process described above doesn't work after three days (72 hours), or if you get an error message other than "site not found" before that,  the post a new question in the Blogger Product Forum:  Include these details:

• Your custom-domain name / URL, 
• Your blogsplot URL 
• The date andtime that you made the change (don't forget to include your timezone)
• A description of what's happening.

Some of the helpers in BPF are expert at diagnosing what's wrong and telling you how to fix the domain, and very happy to help provide you give them the information that the need to work out what's wrong. 

What if someone else owns the domain you want

Before you start, you need to own, or at least control, the domain you want to us.

If someone else currently owns a URL that you want to use, you need to:

• Negotiate with them, and get them to agree to transfer the domain to you
• Set up an account with a domain registrar
  (GoDaddy are the registrars that Google currently uses for Blogger users:  if you use them, you can be certain that the domain-management tools provided will do everything Blogger needs you to do.
  GoDaddy also have a tool that makes it extra easy to use one of their domains for Blogger - log in to your GoDaddy account, and go here to access it).
• Using that domain-registrar account, request that the domain is transferred to you
• Do anything else (eg make a payment) that you told the current owner that you would do (eg make a payment)
• Make sure that the current owner does whatever is needed to transfer the account to you.

Even though Blogger provides some "nice" tools that make URL management easier for "first time buyers" of custom domains, they are not a domain registrar themselves.  This means you cannot transfer a domain that was purchased through another domain registrar to Blogger / Google.   Instead, you need to follow the steps below to use the domain-name for your blog.

A note about Google Apps and Sites domains

If you purchased a domain through Google Apps or Google Sites, then you already have control over it.

But you may need to disable sites in the account management screen before you can use the domain for your blog.

And after you have done this, you can go straight to Step 3 of the next section, because the CName and AName records are (already set up to use Google's servers.

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Related Articles

Switching your blog from one custom domain to another.

Using a custom domain that you own for something other than Blogger

Why RSS / Subscribe to Posts matters for your blog.

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Stop malicious use of your AdSense account ID.

Google Blogger / Apps access to country-specific domains

By: Unknown on 6:40:00 AM / comment : 0 Custom Domains, from Blogger-HAT Lite, Quick-tips

Today, Google Apps announced that we can now purchase a wider range of global and country-specific domains through them - previously they only offered a more limited set of the global domains. And now they're cheaper, too: domains registration is $8/year instead if $10.

To do this, they've partnered with a new-to-them domain registrar http://www.domaindiscount24.com - instead of eNom and GoDaddy, who they used before

If you buy a domain via Google Apps, and DomainDiscount24.com is the registrar, then

• It comes pre-set up to work with Google's tools (mail, apps, sites, etc)
• You need to use DomainDiscount24.com's administration tools if you want to make any changes to the domain set-up
• You continue to use Google Apps domain management tools to manage the Google Services that are available to users in the domain (eg enabling/disabling Blogger)

Can we use one of these domains for Blogger?

I'd guess so: I'm pretty sure that Sites, like Blogger, requires that the domain-registrar provide DNS-hosting and the ability to edit CNAME and ANAME records.  You simply have to go through the same process that you need to use if you purchase a domain directly from any registrar.

(I'm going to test this very soon, there's a .co.nz domain that I've been thinking about for a while>

Will they work automatically with Blogger?

Not always: domain setup is a complex thing, and it's hard to predict if you will get the dreaded "Another blog is already hosted as this address" message:  I've purchased a domain via Google Apps before and and it work perfectly with Blogger - and I've had just the opposite experience, too.

If you get stuck, try either

• Use the information in this recent article from Chuck at Nitecruzr (he's one of the best for resolving custom domain issues)
• Going to the Blogger Product Forum: explain your problem and URL and ask the experts there to take a look.

Can we use this new registrar to buy country-specific domains inside Blogger?

Not at the moment, and - there's been no announcement from Blogger about it.

(Sideline:   I just tested it, and found that eNom is no longer offered as an option for domain-purchase under Blogger's switch-to-custom-domain track.   This means that GoDaddy, who not have a tool to make custom domain purchases easier, are now the only option inside Blogger - so I can see why Google might be looking to bring another registrar-partner on board.)

What domains are now available to purchase via Google Apps:

Global
.com    .info   .org    .net     .mobi     .biz     .name     .cc    .tv


Asia-Pacific
India: .in .co.in .org.in .net.in
New Zealand: .co.nz
Taiwan: .com.tw
Japan: .jp

Latin America
Colombia .co .com.co
Mexico:   .com.mx .mx

Europe
Belgium: .be
Switzerland: .ch
Czech Republic: .cz
Germany / Deutchland .de
Spain / Espana .es and .com.es
Republic of Montenegro: .me (though it has obvious wider appeal to English speakers!)
The Netherlands .nl
Poland .pl

Are domains for all countries available - why not?

There are still far more countries not on the list than on it.

I'm not surprised that there is no sign of Ireland (.ie) on the list -  these domains are hard to get.  I do manage one .ie site with Blogger:  the domain was obtained for a community group that doesn't have a company registration number, but which does have letterhead, a constitution and a well-connected chairman.   For it, I've found that LetsHost.ie provides the necessary domain management tools and their support people were helpful and didn't turn up their noses when I told them I was using it for a Blogger site.

Disappointing ommissions: Australia (.com.au) and England/Britain (.co.uk) - I'm not sure what the story is with these, or which registrars provide the tools needed to let you use a domain purchased from them with blogger.