The Real Blogger Status

If you are trying to make your custom domain published blog work, see my guide Troubleshooting Your Custom Domain Problems . If you want to know how to setup a custom domain properly, from the beginning - and avoid the need for Troubleshooting - read Setting Up DNS Addresses For Custom Domains . Avoid the most basic mistakes made - read The Simplicity Of A Custom Domain Setup . If you just setup your custom domain - and want to minimise the effects of the URL change upon your search engine relationships - read Managing The Migration . If you're just browsing, then read on - but get a good cup of coffee first. And welcome, to Nitecruzr Dot Net.

Of the many accessories and features in Blogger, Custom Domain Publishing is possibly the most problematic. Looking at the Labels index in this blog, I see the Custom Domains label on 363 posts (as of 2015/06/15) - which makes it one of the most heavily labeled single topics here. There are several challenges with diagnosing and resolving a custom domain problem. It has various different causes . It leads to many different symptoms, which can easily be confused for other problems . Its symptoms can be chronic or intermittent- and may be immediate, or may take months to exhibit themselves. It may require resolution by any blog guest, by the blog owner, by Blogger Support, and / or by a third party such as the domain registrar.

Periodically, we see questions about email delivery, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . How do I setup email delivery, for my domain? Long ago, this was fairly easy to setup. It won't be so easy for everybody, however. Email delivery starts with the required DNS addresses - which are domain and registrar specific. Email for BlogSpot URLs is not possible - and email for custom domains will require specific domain services. Not all DNS hosting services will, automatically, provide email.

One of the features of custom domains, when purchased using " Buy a domain ", was the Transition period. Transition was Blogger, allowing that even with Blogger / Google controlling the domain authoritative servers (which they did, indirectly, by using eNom / GoDaddy as the registrars), and the initial DNS address setup (offered for GoDaddy purchased domains ), the stability of custom domains only starts with the domain authoritative servers, and the Root Name servers . Custom domain published blogs, to be consistently stable, can only rely on the DNS addresses being available on the local DNS servers, on a worldwide basis, 48 to 72 hours after the DNS addresses are added. This built in latency period has nothing to do with how custom domains are designed - and it's an issue over which Blogger and Google have no control.

With Google Domains registered custom domains becoming more normal, we are seeing one odd attention to detail, expressed as confusion in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . My website uses "ghs.google.com" - am I supposed to use "ghs.googlehosted.com", instead? It's good to be attentive to detail, particularly with custom domain publishing . This is one detail that may not require immediate attention, however.

Some blog owners publish both a blog and a website - and combine the two in the domain root / www host address pair. This technique, while apparently reasonable, will eventually lead to confusion from the blog readers - and / or anguish by the blog owners. Some readers, using a browser or DNS client that aliases the domain root and "www" host , will find that the website will come up, when the blog is referenced, or vice versa. And some blog owners may find, once more, another case of "Another blog ..." / Key already exists ..." , when examining or publishing to the domain. In neither case will the blog owners or readers be pleased.

Some would be domain owners are reporting the sad truth about Google Domains . I tried to use a Google Domains invitation, and got a refusal. We're sorry. You appear to be in a country where Google Domains is not yet available. You may search for domains, but you will not be able to purchase a domain unless you have a U.S. billing address. Learn more Get notified when Google Domains is available in your country. So thanks anyway! Google Domains is currently a beta product - and as of December 2017, it is available in 14 countries.

We're seeing reports from some blog owners, who purchased custom domains through Blogger / Google, who are unable to access the registrars zone editor through Google Apps. Owners of blogs published to custom domains, where the domains were purchased through "Buy a domain", need to use the registrars zone editor to maintain their domains. In the past, the zone editor could be accessed from a link in the "Advanced DNS settings" wizard in the "Admin console" / Google Apps dashboard. The "Advanced DNS settings" wizard provides important tokens, to let the owner of a domain, purchased through Blogger / Google, interact with the registrar. Besides the tokens, there is a link, captioned "Sign in to DNS console", which should lead directly to the sign in screen provided by either eNom or GoDaddy.

We've known about the Transition period , which has applied to domains purchased through Blogger , for a few years. Under Transition, domains purchased using "Buy a Domain" were only partially published, immediately after the domain purchase - with the publishing process completed, several days later. The Transition period allowed for the domain, newly setup by "Buy a Domain", to become fully visible on the Internet , before blogs subject to Transition were re published.

We're seeing a few reports from confused blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , who want a non BlogSpot URL for their blog. I have tried to follow the guide, but my page does not say the same as the guide. Several blog owners, in trying to use "Add a custom domain" to buy a domain, are observing that there is no "Check Availability" sequence.

Some Blogger blog owners, trying to setup a new blog, discover the hard way that other people are trying to do the same thing. When I try to use "Create a blog", I keep seeing This name is not available. or Blogger is saying it's available - but as I begin to register, it says that it has already received a request for this name. Other blog owners discover that the competition between Blogger blog owners, when using " Create a blog ", also applies to "Buy a domain". And worse yet, "Buy a domain" involves competition with would be website owners outside Blogger / Google.

To Blogger blog owners who want their new non BlogSpot URLs to display their blogs, this conflicting bit of advice provides only confusion and doubt. If you bought your domain name from Blogger, you won't need to create a CNAME record. That advice was written to advise the use of the Blogger " Buy a domain " wizard, which provides non BlogSpot URLs for Blogger blogs, through a simple 15 minute purchase process . In September 2012, that simple process changed, slightly.

Ever since Google ended its free Google Apps accounts , we've been seeing reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about problems encountered when setting up a new Google Apps account, to administer a newly purchased custom domain. Every time I try to login to Google Apps, using instructions in the email message, I get Server Error: We could not process your request at this time, please try again later.

Last week, Google dropped a bombshell on many small client developers. Starting on December 6, 2012 , Google will no longer offer new accounts for the free edition of Google Apps. Google Apps free edition is sometimes referred to as "Standard Edition." This announcement will bring changes to Blogger, and to custom domain publishing. Many owners of Blogger blogs published using the Google Custom Domain feature have learned to use various Google Apps wizards, to setup and to maintain their domains.

One of the challenges of using Blogger involves following the instructions. Blogger / Google personnel provide Help instructions which are not always updated - sometimes they simply write a new Help instructions document, leaving the old Help instructions in place. The policy of leaving old Help instructions in place - and sometimes conflicting with new displays and procedures - occasionally causes confusion. One scenario where this causes a problem is in publishing or re publishing a blog to a custom domain . I've seen instructions that when you buy a domain from Blogger / Google, using "Buy a domain", you won't need to create a CNAME record. One of the advantages of using "Buy a domain" is the ease of setup. If you use "Buy a domain", you don't have to bother with any of the details. This is generally - but not always - true. (Update 2013/09): The second "CNAME" won't be required, in all cases. If you don't see i...

Setting up a custom domain, and publishing a blog to a non BlogSpot URL, is a simple enough task - when we are able to use the "Buy a domain for your blog" wizard . Sometimes, after using "Buy a domain ...", we may still have to access the registrar's Domain Manager wizard - maybe to setup additional hosts, or to use the domain with non Blogger services . When we use "Buy a domain", along with setting up the domain for us, the Blogger / Google wizard sets up a new eNom or GoDaddy domain owner account. To let us later login to eNom or GoDaddy, the "Buy a domain" wizard saves the login information, for our new account - in a Google Apps desktop wizard. Here is yet one more reason why we absolutely must setup the provided Google Apps account , after receiving the Google Apps email. Be aware of the oddities of the Google One Login wizard, and Google Apps , when logging in.

Now that custom domain publishing is once again available , though without the option to buy a domain through Blogger , too many anxious Blogger blog owners are asking the obvious question How do I buy a domain? Not a lot of blog owners want to be told Contact the registrar of your choice. The backup to "Buy a domain" would be to buy a domain directly from a registrar - however, this presents too many challenges to the casual blog owner. (Update 2012/10/09): "Buy a domain for your blog" is once again part of the Publishing wizard. Fortunately, there is a substitute to "Buy a domain", available through Google. Google Apps - which is the support organisation for "Buy a domain" itself - provides the option to buy a domain, along with the Google Apps Dashboard. Google Apps does not use easy to remember URLs, unfortunately.

As we sift through the wreckage of the blogs damaged by the recent Blogger custom domain security issue, we note a significant omission. The " Buy a Domain For Your Blog " wizard is conspicuous in its absence. When I click on the Settings - Publishing options, I don't even have the option to check availability or purchase a domain name. Where is the "Buy a domain" display? Right now, it appears that "Buy a domain" was sacrificed, so that the general custom domain publishing feature could be restored more promptly (though not promptly enough , for many blog owners). There are several tasks that must be completed by "Buy a domain", which are complex - and the necessary coding simply could not be completed by Tuesday of this week. I saw one message of hope. We will be restoring the ability to purchase a custom domain from Blogger soon. We'll simply have to have faith, that they are working on this feature as we lament its current abs...

The use of Google Apps, for resetting the domain settings, frequently requires much repetition - yet seldom produces consistent results. Some blog owners are able to disable a single service to get their domain working, others must recycle the service settings repeatedly - and still others must spend time anxiously recycling one service after another, then looking for more, unnamed services to recycle. Some blog owners look for shortcuts in the recommended process - such as deleting the Apps account , which simply wastes time. Unfortunately, very few shortcuts, when identified, are consistently effective for other blog owners later. This lack of consistency leads to various comments mentioning lack of useful advice, in the forum discussions.

One of the odder examples of naivete, seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , involves the custom domain purchase. How do I buy a domain from Blogger? or alternately How do I have Google host my domain? The immediate answer, properly stated, is simple. You cannot buy a domain from Blogger. Neither Blogger, nor Google, is a registrar. The full answer, however, is a bit more complex.