The Real Blogger Status

One of the advantages of custom domain publishing, and the domain root to published URL redirection, used to be transparent redirection of the URLs. As Blogger blog owners become more sophisticated with their blogs, and custom home pages (aka "landing pages"), become more popular, we have blog owners with concerns about home page access and domain root redirection. We are also seeing concern with direct access to specific posts - with posts advertised, using the domain root URL. In some cases, redirection only shows the reader the blog home page, as the first view of the blog - even with a specific post being linked in the advertised URL.

We see occasional frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , involving broken or unreliable custom domains. I setup the Custom Domain properly, following the Google directions . For some of my readers, my custom domain is not opening. I can see it is going in an infinite loop in the browser - and after a long time, it's throwing errors. My domain is setup, properly. Why do I have to deal with this? And we will investigate - and in many cases, we find the domain is setup properly .

We see some blog owners deciding to change their custom domain URLs - and discovering an unexpected limitation, in re indexing the blog, under the new URL I received email from Google, advising that my previous domain is pulling up a number of 404 errors. I've noticed that these are for individual blog posts. When you change one custom domain to another, you may not see the domain re indexed, transparently.

When you setup a custom domain, for a Blogger blog, the DNS addresses are the most important issue. A close second in importance, to righteous DNS addressing , is redirecting the domain root to the published URL. We see frequent problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . Why does my domain only work, with the "www" in the address? The domain root provides a backup to the published URL, in many domain setups. If the domain root is not redirected, and DNS for the "www" or other published alias is down, the domain is down.

Whether you're setting up or troubleshooting a custom domain , knowing how to read a Dig log is a useful skill. There are hundreds of registrars, serving the Internet community, each with their own dashboard. Blog owners, setting up their domains for their Blogger blogs, must deal with the syntax and terminology used by each different dashboard. A Dig log lets the blog owner identify the DNS addresses for the domain, using a consistent display.

Every domain, to be visible to the world - has to be visible to the root name servers . Your registrar adds your domain to their servers - then sets up a series of linkages, between the root name servers, and their own name servers. Your job, as the domain purchaser, is to connect the registrar name servers, and the Google servers .

I've been observing custom domain publishing, and how it's affected by applications mapped through various Google services, for a few years. The well known "Another blog", and it's successor "Key already exists", have three possible causes . Actual content, published to the URL. Bogus DNS addresses. Database corruption. If you map a Google service to a URL in your domain, even temporarily, then simply disable the service, you can end up with a domain URL that remains mapped to the service. When you try to publish your blog to that URL, you're going to see "Another blog ..." or "Key already exists ...".

We've recently seen a few reports about problems with custom redirects , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I want to redirect my blog URL to a static home page. With a redirect in place, mobile computer users can't access my blog. Mobile browsers display an error, mentioning too many redirects.

I constantly advise Blogger blog owners to avoid forwarding, when setting up custom domain publishing . In the rare cases where forwarding is actually required , not every blog owner reports success. My blog now displays a non Google search page! or worse My blog now displays 404 Not Found What did I do wrong?? Depending upon what setup work was done by the blog / domain owner, and what effort is required by the registrar, one may expect to see, quite predictably, either of the above errors.

I constantly advise Blogger blog owners to avoid forwarding, when setting up custom domain publishing . In the rare cases where forwarding is actually required , not every blog owner reports success. My blog now displays a non Google search page! or worse My blog now displays 404 Not Found What did I do wrong?? Depending upon what setup work was done by the blog / domain owner, and what effort is required by the registrar, one may expect to see, quite predictably, either of the above errors.

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , we see the innocent question How do I redirect traffic, automatically, from my Blogger blog to my WordPress blog? or I just moved my blog to a real website - how do I get my readers from my Blogger blog to my website? This need, like redirecting traffic between BlogSpot URLs , is one feature that Blogger will probably not ever provide. If Blogger were to allow the automatic forwarding of traffic, from a Blogger blog to a non Google website, spammers could use BlogSpot blogs as gateways, and move their spam content around , at will. You can redirect traffic from a BlogSpot URL to a non BlogSpot URL - but you must use a properly setup custom domain , to do this. You can combine your Blogger blog(s) with a non Google website , if you think about it. Setup a virtual host pair, in the website domain. Publish your blog to the virtual host. Add a custom link bar to the blog, and the website. Use the same template on the blog and the webs...

I give advice, as well as problem solutions, several times / day, in BHF: How Do I? , and in BHF: Something Is Broken . Not all of my advice is graciously accepted. Some of my advice is based on simple truths. No, Auto Pagination is not going to be made optional. No, you cannot have control of that blog, even though you state it's yours - unless you can prove ownership. No, you cannot have control of that URL, even though it is inactive - even if it is the perfect URL for your blog. None of those subjects frustrate me half as much as simple advice, also occasionally ignored, about properly setting up a custom domain . Too many blog owners insist that frame or URL forwarding is an acceptable solution, for connecting a domain to a Blogger blog.

Similar to a redirection to the Google Apps Start Page service , some custom domains will be found to be directed to Google Sites. Again, we'll see an apparently normal (asymmetrical) DNS address configuration . mydomain.net. 3600 IN A 216.239.32.21 mydomain.net. 3600 IN A 216.239.34.21 mydomain.net. 3600 IN A 216.239.36.21 mydomain.net. 3600 IN A 216.239.38.21 www.mydomain.net. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com. --- ghs.google.com. 282206 IN CNAME ghs.l.google.com. ghs.l.google.com. 300 IN A 74.125.43.121 The diagnosis, again, will be made using an (abbreviated) HTTP trace . Sending request: GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: mydomain.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv: 1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5 Connection: close • Finding host IP address... • Host IP address = 209.85.171.121 • Finding TCP protoc...

Money is a popular artifact used in magic tricks - everybody loves looking at it, and playing with it. The disappearing quarter - which starts out in your hand, and is found behind your ear - is intriguing. Equally as intriguing is the magician who can take two 50 cent pieces, and turn them into a dollar bill.

Setting up a Google Custom Domain, which gives us the ability to publish our Blogger blog to a non BlogSpot URL, is a reasonably simple process. That simple process, though, depends upon several not so simple factors. Our understanding of how rigidly simple the DNS setup is. Our acceptance of how rigidly simple the DNS setup is. Our use of a registrar that provides us the DNS setup that is required . Custom Domain setup is simple - but allows for no deviations.

If you're lucky, and can afford to have 2 homes, you may occasionally plan an extended stay in the second for while. You may email (or snail mail or maybe Tweet) your friends and family I'm going to be staying at the cottage (mountain lodge, desert camp, ...) for a while. Send all of my mail there for the next couple months, but keep my current mail address on file. This is different from sending them, and your business acquaintances (and banks, credit card companies, etc) a second notice I'm moving next month. Please change your address for me.

When you setup a Custom Domain, the setup wizard provides encouraging advice We won't leave your readers behind! http://myblog.blogspot.com will redirect to your custom domain. Blogger accomplishes this bit of trickery, using standard Internet protocol - a 301 Redirect - but it's done in two steps.

When you setup your Google Custom Domain, the instruction for the DNS setup is rather basic. Add one or more "CNAME" records. Point "www.mydomain.com", and / or "mydomain.com", to "ghs.google.com". Unfortunately, not all DNS hosts support "CNAME" referrals to both the domain alias ("www.mydomain.com"), and the primary domain ("mydomain.com"). Most DNS hosts will support CNAME referral for "www.mydomain.com". Less will support CNAME referral for "mydomain.com", and there's a problem . Some people will try other solutions, like Domain or URL Forwarding . Some DNS hosts, like GoDaddy, will substitute a 301 Redirect for the primary domain, pointing it to the "www"alias. Sign into GoDaddy - either directly (using a bookmark ) - or through the Google Apps " Advanced DNS Settings ". Go to "Domains >> Details" for your domain. Click on "Total DNS". Under...

Several bloggers today reported problems with their custom domain published blogs . All was well on Friday and then on Sunday it's not working. I DID NOT DO ANYTHING TO MY BLOG!!!!! So it has to be Blogger since I am not the only one with this problem!!! It was working fine Friday - I didn't do anything, and Sunday it just stopped working!! Current DNS setup for 2china4darci.com: www.2china4darci.com. CNAME 2china4darci.com. [TTL=3600] 2china4darci.com. A 64.202.189.170 [TTL=3600] [US] The server at "64.202.189.170" is pwfwd-v01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net (64.202.189.170) This shows a URL forwarding setup. Whatever Google server pointed to, from the URL forwarding setup , is apparently down. This is an excellent example of why URL forwarding just isn't a good solution , for custom domain publishing. The correct DNS setup for 2china4darci.com: www.2china4darci.com. CNAME ghs.google.com. [TTL=3600] [US] This is called CNAME referral , and this is how custom dom...

If you're trying to get your Custom Domain setup to work, and are frustrated (as I am) by the fact that you can't get both "www.yourdomain.com" and "yourdomain.com" to forward properly , you may have complained to your DNS provider, suspecting that the problem is one which they must resolve. And in some cases, your DNS provider may not know how to setup a "CNAME" record. Some providers only use "A" records.