Custom Domains, And A Domain Cluster

More and more bloggers are publishing their blogs to non BlogSpot URLs, using custom domain publishing, thanks to improved setup and stability. And more bloggers are finding more questions to ask, about how to handle the details.

Before custom domain publishing, we had bloggers renaming BlogSpot published blogs. Then, we had them publishing to their custom domains. Now we have bloggers who wish to rename their custom domain published URLs, and even to publish blogs to multiple non BlogSpot URLs.

• A single blog republished to a different domain.
• A single blog published to one (primary) domain, with one or more secondary domains used as aliases.
• Multiple blogs, each published to a different domain, in a domain cluster.

A single blog republished to a different domain is similar to republishing a custom domain published blog. Since the final custom domain URL (from step #3) won't be the same as the original custom domain URL, this will require planning similar to changing your BlogSpot URL. When complete, you will have one blog, addressable from a different domain URL.

A single blog published to one (primary) domain, with one or more secondary domains used as aliases, requires careful setup.

• First, choose the primary domain URL. This is the non BlogSpot URL which will be used within the blog, and indexed by the search engines.
• Setup the primary domain, with righteous DNS addresses.
• Publish the blog to the primary domain URL.
• Any secondary domains can then be redirected to the primary domain, as supported by the DNS host.

When complete, you will have one blog, addressable from multiple domain URLs.

Multiple blogs, each published to a different domain, in a domain cluster, is a third possibility. This variation gives us the ability, for instance, to publish a blog in multiple languages. When complete, you will have multiple blogs, each addressable from a different - and mutually similar - domain URL.

Note that, in all 3 cases discussed above, we refer to different domains in the associated URLs. You can, just as easily, have different virtual hosts within the same domain.

• "www.myfirstdomain.com" and "www.myseconddomain.com"
• "virtualhost1.mydomain.com" and "virtualhost2.mydomain.com"
• "www.mydomain.com" and "virtualhost.mydomain.com"

would all be valid primary / secondary pairs. Note that

• "www.mydomain.com" and "mydomain.com"

would not be a valid primary / secondary pair, because "www.mydomain.com" and "mydomain.com" are two halves of a host pair, when published to a custom domain.

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