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Moving Your Custom Domain To A Different Host?

Occasionally, we see queries from blog owners, considering moving their custom domain published blogs to new hosts.
I bought my domain through Blogger, and now I need to move it to my own hosting. Can someone please advise me. I know that I need to change the name servers somewhere.
Here we have a somewhat vague question, that can have several results. You need to be aware of three essential services, that are involved in any blog or website. Be aware of the differences between Domain Registration, DNS Hosting, and Content Hosting, and decide what, specifically, you need to do.Consider these alternatives carefully, they may affect the success of your move.

If the blog owner in question needs to move the DNS hosting, the new registrar will take care of moving the master registration to point to their domain servers.

The blog owner will then have to setup the domain DNS addresses as they are setup for the existing domain, or to an equally righteous configuration. The ability to do this will, as usual, depend upon what choices the new DNS host provides.

There is one item which the domain owner must provide, to the new registrar. The certificate which proves domain ownership, and is essential to a domain transfer, is provided as the Extensible Provisioning Protocol Code.

The EPP Code is available through the domain manager provided by the current registrar. For a domain purchased using "Buy A Domain", this is yet another reason why you need your Google Apps desktop activated.

If the blog owner is moving hosting of the content itself, and won't be publishing on Google servers any more, the new registrar / content host should take care of the domain transfer, completely. The owner will now have to figure out how to transfer the web site content, which will likely involve a migration effort, or recoding from scratch.

It's possible, but not certain, that the content can be moved by exporting from Blogger, and importing to the new host - if the new host can read .xml Blogger content.

Regardless what exactly the owner decides to do, the next contact should be with the new domain hosting service or registrar. Their support staff should provide detailed setup instructions, or at least address the general support issues.

Comments

Jake said…
This is not correct. If someone bought a domain from Blogger (godaddy/enom) and they want to transfer away to their own hosting somewhere else (bluehost/hostgator/1&1) then there are things that the Blogger customer needs to get and change. The blogger customer needs access to change the Name Server settings. Can they do this in their Google/Blogger account? They also need to get the EPP Code to transfer the Domain Registration away from Godaddy/Enom to the new Registration company. Those 2 items above cannot be done from the new registrar. The new registrar/hosting company cannot call up GoDaddy/Enom and get or change any information.
JRATLANTA said…
so using Go-Daddy what people want to know is the answer not 1,000 words but the actually answer.
Nameserver 1:
Nameserver 2:
Nameserver 3:
Nameserver 4:
We generally will not understand and generally if we want to read a book we'd buy one. All we want is the simple answer. Can you tell us the answer of the google nameserver for the lines above?
Nitecruzr said…
Can you tell us the answer of the google nameserver for the lines above?

Google does not provide DNS servers for your non Google domains.

Do not register your non Google domain using a service that requires that you supply the DNS servers.

There are no Google nameservers for the lines above.
chris said…
Chuck are you with google? Why can we not get an answer from them? I paid them for a custom blog name ie. www.wildtimber.net. I should be able to have it point to another sebsite I have and I should be able to move it to another host. Why can I not get a striaght answer on this. If google can take your money then they should be able to answer a question. Why do i have to post on a forum and hope it gets answered. How do i contact someone at google technical who can help me?
Nitecruzr said…
Guys,

Blogger / Google supports Blogger blogs and Google services.

When you move a blog or domain to WordPress, you use the services provided by WordPress. Those services are designed by WordPress, and work for WordPress blogs.

If you move your blog or domain to WordPress, ask WordPress Support for assistance.

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