DNS - The Backbone Of Google Custom Domains

DNS, or the Domain Name System, is an important component in Blogger, and an essential component in a Blogger blog published to a Google Custom Domain. Whenever someone reports a problem with a custom domain published blog, I start my reply with a DNS analysis. Generally, I use an excerpted Dig log, and / or an HTTP trace, to show the problem objectively.

To understand the importance and meaning of the DNS analysis that I provide, you need to know several things

• How DNS works.
• How Custom Domains use DNS addressing.
• How Custom Domains are affected by DNS Latency.

For insight in how DNS works, I'll offer you several external articles, of differing technical depth. As always, I'll alphabetise this list, so examine each one in turn.

• D. J. Bernstein: How does DNS work?


• How Stuff Works: How Domain Name Servers Work


• I.T. Knowledge Exchange: How does DNS work


• Wikipedia: Domain Name System

And, you are welcome to "Google It", for possibly more discussions.

Now those of you with a plain old Blog*Spot blog are probably thinking

Hey what the heck Chuck, why should I care about this?

because native Blog*Spot blogs use Google DNS. Google provides addressing information for all web pages within the "*.blogger.com", "*.blogspot.com", and "*.google.com" name spaces. If your blog is still published to Blog*Spot, you have no need to read any further.

Blogger / Google does not provide addressing information for any web pages outside the "*.blogger.com", "*.blogspot.com", and "*.google.com" name spaces. They have no legal, moral, or technical justification for providing any such information, so they leave that to the public DNS infrastructure, and simply say

Point an address, in an external DNS server, to our servers, and we will take it from there.

Non BlogSpot URLs, whether they address content starting as a Blogger blog, a WordPress blog, or a Yahoo page, are all maintained in the public DNS infrastructure. Some URLs may even point to a domain that contains all 3, or more.

To setup a custom domain, you (or a third party, maybe a Blogger script like "Buy A Domain For Your Blog") has to setup the DNS configuration for your domain, in the DNS servers provided by your DNS Hosting Service. Separately, you may examine some righteous solutions, and alternately, some spurious solutions, showing the right ways and the wrong ways, respectively. Remember, for best results, pair the DNS entries properly, and avoid forwarding, DNS based or otherwise.

You may, depending upon your need and current availability of Google servers, choose any one of several reliable DNS configurations.

Having setup your DNS, you publish your blog. If you see a well known error

Server Not Found

Error 404

you

• Check and / or correct the DNS configuration, carefully.
• Wait for TTL period to expire.
• Publish the blog back to BlogSpot, then re publish to the "www" alias.

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