Setting Up Your Custom Domain Starts With The Registrar

We see this naivete regularly, and with such basic questions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

Why do I see

Another blog is already hosted at this address

when trying to setup my domain?

and

Why do my readers see

404 Not Found

when trying to view my blog?

When we diagnose the problem, we get rather obvious results.

http://who.is/whois/mybrokendomain.com/

REGISTRY WHOIS FOR MYBROKENDOMAIN.COM

Registrar: CLUELESS REGISTRAR
Whois Server: whois.cluelessregistrar.com
Referral URL: http://www.cluelessregistrar.com
Status: clientTransferProhibited

Expiration Date: 2012-05-31
Creation Date: 2011-05-31
Last Update Date: 2011-06-14

Name Servers:
    ns1.google.com
    ns2.google.com
    ns3.google.com
    ns4.google.com

A Dig provides another familiar symptom.

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @localhost mybrokendomain.com A
 ; (2 servers found)
 ;; global options:  printcmd
 ;; Got answer:
 ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 7353
 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
 
 ;; QUESTION SECTION:
 ;mybrokendomain.com.  IN A
 
 ;; Query time: 154 msec
 ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
 ;; WHEN: Tue Jun 14 17:34:44 2011
 ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 37

Definition of any private domain, in this example "mybrokendomain.com", starts with the domain registrar, who defines "mybrokendomain.com" on their server. Google uses "ns1.google.com" for the various Google domains, they do not provide DNS services for your private domain.

One of the advantages of a proper domain purchase and setup is the avoidance of confusion - which leads to odd scenarios such as illustrated here. If you're going to buy a domain directly from a registrar, make sure that you purchase the right services.

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