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Custom Domain vs FTP Publishing - June 2009

Last month, we saw two steps in the beginning of the migration from FTP Publishing to Custom Domain Publishing, as a standard for non BlogSpot publishing of Blogger blogs. A visible change was provided by Rick Klau, new Blogger Product Manager, with Blogger Buzz: FTP vs. Custom Domains. A second, less visible change was made to the new blog setup process.

Before last month, the "Name your blog" screen, where you selected the name of the BlogSpot blog which you wished associated with your blog, had an alternate link at the bottom, "Advanced Settings". If you were to click on the "Advanced Settings" link, you'd be taken directly into the FTP Publishing setup process, without choosing a BlogSpot name.

The "Advanced Settings" link is now located on a screen reached from the "Continue" link on "Name your blog", and the link now takes you into the Custom Domain "Advanced Settings" publishing setup screen.

This change accomplishes two things.
  • It emphasises the shift in direction, from FTP Publishing to Custom Domain Publishing.
  • It removes one problem with FTP Published blogs - blogs that could be setup without a BlogSpot URL.


Long ago, Blogger blogs that started out as BlogSpot publishing, and were later converted to FTP publishing using the "Settings" - "Publishing" wizard, simply created a blog that was externally published. The previously published BlogSpot URL simply went out of existence. If a blogger wished to direct his readers from his former BlogSpot URL to his new non BlogSpot FTP published URL, he had to publish a new BlogSpot blog to the former URL, with a notice
This blog has now moved to a new URL.


One of the advantages of Custom Domain publishing was the automatic redirect of traffic, from the BlogSpot URL to the domain. Sometime after this was provided, this redirect was added to newly created FTP Published blogs too, but only if they were created from BlogSpot blogs republished from Settings - Publishing. Blogs created from "Name your blog" - "Advanced Settings" were created without a BlogSpot URL, so there was no BlogSpot URL to be redirected to the FTP published URL.

This loophole has now been eliminated. All newly created blogs will start out with a BlogSpot URL. Custom Domain publishing is provided as a convenient part of the blog setup process - to enable the blog to start out, immediately, with a non BlogSpot URL, as well as a BlogSpot URL. FTP Publishing, where required, can be selected from "Settings" - "Publishing", for public blogs using a classic template.

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Comments

kjzd said…
I am very unhappy about this change because I can no longer publish to an existing domain subdirectory. It seems to me that this was done so Blogger/Google can "conveniently" sell you domain names directly.

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