The "Buy A Domain For Your Blog" Wizard

Now that Google Custom Domains are becoming more polished, and people can see their usefulness, many bloggers who are less technically savvy are wanting one. Having more web presence than the plain old "myblog.blogspot.com" is probably the dream of many.

To encourage this, Blogger recently added the "Buy A Domain For Your Blog" wizard. Like all Blogger wizards, it has its advantages and its disadvantages.

Note: In the examples below, I'm using the "ping" command to diagnose my example domain, mydomain.com. You may check your specific domain, similarly.

To use the wizard, simply go to Settings - Publishing, and click on "Switch to: • Custom Domain". Here, you can purchase the domain (when available) of your choice, and simply tell Blogger (and the "partner" registrar) that you want your blog published to "www.mydomain.com" ("mydomain.com" being the domain of your choice).

The wizard completed, and your credit card debited, you'll have your blog now responding to "www.mydomain.com", with "myblog.blogspot.com" redirected to "www.mydomain.com". And "mydomain.com" will go to a Google Apps server (and then to "www.mydomain.com").

C:\>ping mydomain.com

Pinging mydomain.com [72.14.207.121] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=243ms TTL=245
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=229ms TTL=245
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=228ms TTL=245
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=232ms TTL=245

Ping statistics for 72.14.207.121:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 228ms, Maximum = 243ms, Average = 233ms

C:\>ping www.mydomain.com

Pinging ghs.l.google.com [64.233.179.121] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=214ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=199ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=225ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=219ms TTL=244

Ping statistics for 64.233.179.121:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 199ms, Maximum = 225ms, Average = 214ms

This reflects a pair of DNS records for mydomain. The primary domain directed to a trio of Google Apps servers.

mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 64.233.179.121
mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 66.249.81.121
mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 72.14.207.121

and the "www" alias directed to Google

www.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com

and your blog "myblog.blogspot.com" is now published to "www.mydomain.com". All of this in one transaction, and everything directed properly. Nice.

But note that you will experience a 72 hour period, after setting the domain up, when there will be some vagaries.

For a more detailed description of the above process, see my chronicle Using The "Buy A Domain For Your Blog" Wizard.

If you get the well known "Another blog ..." error, you can deal with that using Google Apps.
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