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Custom Domain Setup Advice From GoDaddy Is Wrong

We have recently seen a few blog owners, in the process of setting up their blogs for custom domain publishing, reporting various symptoms.
I get a bX-rfwe0f error, when trying to use the Publishing tab on Blogger, after purchasing a new domain from GoDaddy.

When investigated, an excerpted Dig log shows a common symptom.
mydomain.com. 3600 IN    A    64.202.189.170
www.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME    mydomain.com.
Server "64.202.189.170" is not a Google custom domain DNS server - it's owned by GoDaddy, and it's used for DNS forwarding.
pwfwd-v01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net (64.202.189.170)
64.202.160.0 - 64.202.191.255
GoDaddy.com, Inc. GO-DADDY-SOFTWARE-INC (NET-64-202-160-0-1) 64.202.160.0 - 64.202.191.255

GoDaddy recently published new, easy to use, instructions for setting up DNS addresses for Google custom domains. Mapping Your Domain Name to Work with Blogger is so nicely written, that Blogger blog owners don't realise that - as well written as it is - it is still wrong.
To point your Blogger blog to your domain name, you set up domain name mapping, which configures your blog settings and domain name. You update your settings in your Blogger account and our Domain Manager:
  1. Park the domain name you want to use with your Blogger account on our parked nameservers.
  2. Edit the www CNAME record for the domain name you want to use with your Blogger account. This update tells the Web browser to open your Blogger blog when visitors enter your domain name's URL in the browser address bar.
  3. Forward your domain name to use www. This step ensures your Blogger blog displays for visitors who go to your domain name with or without the www prefix. For example, it displays for visitors who entered both www.coolexample.com and coolexample.com.
  4. Configure your Blogger account to use your domain name.
That's just the overview. Each step comes with a nicely written step by step instruction, that almost any blog owner can use, and setup their domain in 15 minutes.

The problem is that, once the 15 minutes are up, the domain is forwarded to Blogger. And forwarding is not an effective technique for redirecting custom domain traffic. To setup a custom domain, you have to use referral, in one of 3 models.

If you wish to see how to setup a properly referred domain, read Correcting The GoDaddy Custom Domain Setup Advice.

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Comments

Anonymous said…
I have experienced this problem for the past two weeks and cannot get into the settings/publishing tab to do anything about it. Google Support keeps telling me that they are trying to get a hold of the specialist for an update on my issue.

Can you recommend any steps in the meantime?

Many thanks,
Bethany
Jo said…
okay so how do we fix it? or is there no fix at this moment?
Nitecruzr said…
You need to use "4 x "A" + "CNAME"" referral, or one of the other two supported DNS models.

Watch this blog for detailed instructions which will supplement or correct the GoDaddy instructions, coming soon.
Helen Bushnell said…
Yes, please post this. I am going to be doing this sometime in the next month, and I would like to get it right.

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