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.

As most of us know, Blogger HTTPS support does not include custom domain publishing . The advantages offered by HTTPS access are widely advertised - and have led to envy between blog owners who publish to custom domains, and native BlogSpot blog owners proudly advertising their new HTTPS connectivity. Long ago, we saw possibly malicious code which helps our readers avoid using country code aliases , to read our blogs from an aliased country. Recently, there was dodgy code which blocked HTTPS mode , to read a customised blog. Now, we have custom code to force HTTPS access, for BlogSpot published blogs.

Since the beginning of the Google Custom Domain option, the ability to publish a blog to "www.mydomain.com", and optionally have Blogger associate "mydomain.com" with "www.mydomain.com" , has been an assumed feature in custom domain publishing. Similarly, the ability to publish to "blog.mydomain.com", and optionally have "www.blog.mydomain.com" as an association, was an assumed, if slightly less popular option.

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.

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...