Your Blog, Custom Domains, And Virtual Hosts

I've written about publishing your blog as a virtual host in your domain, already.


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

This is generally done when "mydomain.com" and / or "www/mydomain.com" is in use for hosting a web site. This is a great way to combine your blog and your web site. Yet there are other reasons to avoid publishing your blog to the domain root.


mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.32.21
mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.34.21
mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.36.21
mydomain.com.  3600 IN A 216.239.38.21
www.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.

If your domain comes with content hosting (not just DNS hosting), the domain may be in use for hosting email, an FTP server, or miscellaneous content such as photos, on the domain server. Now, you can host your domain email with Google Apps, but FTP (hosted on "ftp.mydomain.com") and miscellaneous services will probably always be the responsibility of a third party host. And if you add the 4 x "A" referrals shown above, access to the third party host (besides explicit access to "ftp.mydomain.com") will stop working.

In these cases, your best choice is to publish the blog to a virtual host. Leave the FTP server, your photo library, and your web site, hosted on the third party server, at the domain root - and get started with weaving your blog into your domain.

>> Top

Add A Custom Redirect, If You Change A Post URL

When you rename a blog, the most that you can do, to keep the old URL useful, is to setup a stub post , with a clickable link to the new URL. Yo! The blog is now at xxxxxxx.blogspot.com!! Blogger forbids gateway blogs, and similar blog to blog redirections . When you rename a post, you can setup a custom redirect - and automatically redirect your readers to the post, under its new URL. You should take advantage of this option, if you change a post URL.

What's The URL Of My Blog?

We see the plea for help, periodically I need the URL of my blog, so I can give it to my friends. Help! Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, after all? No Chuck, be polite. OK, OK. The title of this blog is "The Real Blogger Status", and the title of this post is "What's The URL Of My Blog?".

Referer Spam Is Annoying - And, It's Persistent

Recently, we've seen a few blog owners who are curious about odd trends in their Stats displays. My numbers seem to go up steadily for a while, then drop. Then, they go up again, for a while, then drop again. Rises and falls in traffic are normal. You'll never have the same number of people, viewing your blog, constantly. During some days and some hours, our readers are going to be elsewhere, and not viewing our blogs.

The Real Blogger Status

Search This Blog