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Don't Try To Split The Custom Domain Root URLs

Some blog owners publish both a blog and a website - and combine the two in the domain root / www host address pair.

This technique, while apparently reasonable, will eventually lead to confusion from the blog readers - and / or anguish by the blog owners.

Some readers, using a browser or DNS client that aliases the domain root and "www" host, will find that the website will come up, when the blog is referenced, or vice versa. And some blog owners may find, once more, another case of "Another blog ..." / Key already exists ...", when examining or publishing to the domain.

In neither case will the blog owners or readers be pleased.

We've known, for a while, about browsers and possibly DNS clients, that alias the domain root and the "www" host.

The domain root and "www" host are aliased, in some systems.

The practice of aliasing the domain root and "www" host has been common, with some webmasters, for years. Firefox - and possibly other web browsers and some DNS clients - have used the domain root, and "www" host, to back each other up.

The standard DNS setup for custom domain publishing, as provided by Blogger "Buy a domain", included a set of "A" addresses to define the domain root - and a "CNAME" to define the "www" host - whenever "Buy a domain" was provided as an option for Blogger blogs.

We've seen domain aliasing cause problems, with improperly domain root setup.

I have advised many custom domain blog owners, who have purchased domains directly from a registrar, to add the 4 x "A" records (when not defined - or when improperly defined), when reporting a "404" from the "www" host. Many times, the "404" has been resolved - even with the "www" host already properly defined, in DNS.

If you split your domain between a blog and a website, your readers may suffer.

If a domain is defined with a (non Blogger) website published to the domain root, and a Blogger blog published to the "www" host - and there is a problem accessing the "www" host - some browsers / DNS clients will automatically try accessing the domain root. This will happen, without decision by the computer owner.

If your reader is trying to access the blog (published to the "www" host) - and the browser displays the website (published to the domain root), this will lead to confusion.

It may seem like the domain root and "www" aliases are separately addressed domain components - but this may not, in reality, be true. The sanity of your readers many make this an important issue.

Besides the three supported Blogger configurations, there are an additional three variants, which support a non Blogger website combined with a Blogger blog. For best results, use one of the three identified configurations.

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