How I got Custom Domains to work with New Blogger
This is how I got Custom Domains to work (partially) with the New Blogger. It’s quite simple actually:
1. Set up an account with Google Apps for your Blogspot address.
2. Then go into your Domain Name Registrar’s DNS settings, and where it says “CNAMES (Aliases)” put “www” for the host name, and then “ghs.google.com” for where it points to. If “www” is already there like mine was just edit the existing setting to point to “ghs.google.com”. Within a few hours it had propogated itself and started working.
3. Then switch your settings to publish to your Custom Domain Name in the Blogger dashboard. Here are the help files they provide for additional information (albeit a little confusing). But what they don’t tell you is using the “www” prefix in the CNAME (Aliases). I had to get that information from Google Apps. There are other ways of course such as adding Google’s IP address to the “A (Host)” and pointing “www” to it, but I rejected that idea because there’s no way of telling if it is static or dynamic.Is there anybody else out there who is into jigsaw puzzles? Having fun yet?UPDATE: The Best Setup for Custom Domains with New Blogger.
Filed under: blog bloke, instabloke, blog, blog tips, blogging, blog tools, blogtech, custom domain, new blogger
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Chuck post a great case study for this:
http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/2007/01/google-custom-domain-case-study-1.html
I think that’s the best implementation of blogger for CNAME I’ve seen so far. Good luck for trying, Bloke
A nice try but no cigar yet. As you can see rangga the example he shows doesn’t work with the “www” prefix:
http://www.martinezumc.org/.
Whereas mine works with “www” but not without.
hmm.. that’s true, sorry I didn’t notice that.
how if you just create one page that direct “www” page to the without “www”, godaddy does that kind of service if I’m not wrong (that’s kinda annoying though)
my experience, I never touch “w” three times just to open any website, but maybe someone else does =)
That’s why I consider it only a “partial” fix because a lot of people like yourself don’t use the “www” prefix.
Here is another way to get them both working.
Using cybercoder.blogspot.com and cyb3rc0d3r.com
1.) Blogger - I set the Domain here to blog.cyb3rc0d3r.com
2.) Cname record - blog.cyb3rc0d3r.com to ghs.google.com
3.) A Records - LEFT as is.
4.) Forwarding - Forwarded my URL to http://cybercoder.blogspot.com
Now, it is a little different, but, the result is fine.
Cyb3rcod3r.com AND www.cyb3rc0d3r.com both go to = blog.cyb3rc0d3r.com
This will work fine with SE Crawlers and SERPS.
Thanks CyberCoder. I checked it but http://www.blog.cyb3rc0d3r.com and http://Cyb3rcod3r.com don’t seem to be working.
The first one is malformed, you can not have a www address with a subdomain, it will never resolve.
and the second one is misspelled.
http://cyb3rc0d3r.com
http://blog.cyb3rc0d3r.com
http://www.cyb3rc0d3r.com
I just opened each one no problem, if they do not work it must be a DNS issue between where the servers are and your location.
PS: Your email keeps bouncing.
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
Well that explains it. Actually I already tried a similar setup to yours but I had removed the URL forwarding. SO I’ll put it back on and if it works you get the cigar.
CyberCoder, there’s still a piece of the puzzle missing. I tried your setup and now it isn’t working with the “www” prefix.
Please tell me:
1. What exactly do you have the “www” CNAME Alias pointing to?
2. What is your A Record?
Or better still, can you send me a snapshot? My email is working. Thanks bro.
The A Records for www and non www both point to the host IP address, if you have an A record you do not want a CNAME record with the same info.
So, the only CNAME is for blog.cyb3rc0d3r.com
Here is a copy straight from my Zone Files (IP addresses changed)
A Records:
cyb3rc0d3r.com. IN A 11.11.111.11
www.cyb3rc0d3r.com. IN A 11.11.111.11
CNAME Records:
blog.cyb3rc0d3r.com. IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
——————————————————
And here is a snapshot of my Forward setting.
Forward to URL ACTIVE
http://cybercoder.blogspot.com
LOL! That IP address points to the Defense Information Systems Agency. I didn’t know you were working undercover.
I may try experimenting with Custom Domains some more, but my experience with it has been rough. If I play around with it again, I will be sure to use a test blog and not my main blog. My big mistake was setting up the Google Page Creator subdomain feature in Google Apps. Once it was set up, typing doublebassblog.com or jasonheath.blogspot.com into the address bar kept redirecting readers to a GoDaddy park page at welcome.doublebassblog.com. I disabled Page Creator and unpublished the page, then changed the Google Page Creator URL to gdffl, which confused it enough to allow my URL to work, but 12 hours later all traffic to my blog started getting sent to a GoDaddy park page at gdffl.doublebassblog.com!
I deleted any and all CNAME records pointing to ghs.google.com, and forwarded my URL to my blogspot address, but over 48 hours later it was still sending people to a park page at gdffl.doublebassblog.com. I finally had to call GoDaddy, which finally fixed the problem.
There is no option to cancel your Google Apps registration, so I finally e-mailed them. A couple of days later I got some fairly complicated instructions on how to cancel your account. They don’t make it easy.
Easy to sign up, easy to screw up, impossible to cancel.
Hi Jason. Sorry to hear that the saga continues
Have you also turned off your Custom Domain within the Blogger dashboard and switched back to your original blogspot address?
Would you mind sharing with us the instructions for deleting a Google Apps account?
IMPORTANT UPDATE: After several hours on the phone with the domain registrar I think I might have a fix for all of these problems. I just have to wait another 24 hours for it to propagate further to make sure. So stay tuned and I’ll keep y’all posted.
blog bloke, how did you solve www and without www problem ? thanks.
Here is how Google Apps support instructed me on how to delete my account:
To delete your Google Apps for Your Domain account, please use one of the
following methods to verify that you own the domain name:
Verification option #1: create a special CNAME record
Create the following CNAME record for your domain through your domain
hosting provider.
[special 5-letter word] points to ghs.google.com
If your domain host is separate from your domain registrar, make sure
you’re modifying the CNAME record with your domain host. For help creating
this CNAME record, visit
https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=47283.
Verification option #2: uploading a special HTML file
1. Create an HTML file and name it gafyd.html.
2. Enter the following characters anywhere in the HTML file: ZEBRA.
3. Save and upload this HTML file to your website. Be sure to upload the
file to your root directory.
4. Check http://your-domain.com/gafyd.html to make sure the file was
uploaded properly.
Once you’ve completed one of the verification options, reply to this
message. I’ll review the request and delete your Google Apps account, if
ownership is verified. This will delete all data associated with your
Google Apps account. You and your users won’t be able to re-enable or
retrieve deleted information.
Thanks Jason. What a hassle! I would hold off on doing deleting the account while we are still investigating this.
I’m still working on it Protesto. Obviously there are different ways to set it up and I’m experimenting to see which is best. It is unfortunately a slow and frustrating process because DNS changes can sometimes take days to propagate.
UPDATE:
Dec 31st, 2007 at 12:25 am
[…] is an update to my previous post about setting up the New Blogger with Custom Domains. I’ve been playing around with the DNS […]
Dec 31st, 2007 at 12:33 am
[…] is an update to my previous post about setting up the New Blogger with Custom Domains. I’ve been playing around with the DNS […]