The Web Authority

I have it figured out – how to set up custom domains on Blogspot. Click in to our sister blog Bog-World Watch for the full information and set up steps. It is not complicated, but why reinvent the wheel when you can learn from my mistakes.

Okay, finally, I am a power user with Blogger and I even had problems setting up a custom domain on the new blogger. But I finally have it figured out so here’s the low-down on how to do it.

1. Sign up for a blog on http://www.blogger.com/ and pretend that you want it to be hosted at Blogspot. Don’t click anything that asks for custom FTP settings. Do that and you won’t get any of the new Ajax tools and widgets from the new Blogger interface.
2. Click the Settings tab and then the Publish tab. Here you will enter in your custom domain name. My Blogspot name for this blog was http://nancymccord@blogspot.com. I entered in the custom domain place http://blog.mccordweb.com/.
3. This is where is got confusing. I thought that for my blog to show, I had to go to http://www.mccordweb.com/ and set up a subdirectory domain. You do NOT have to do that. In fact if you do that the publishing feature will not work and your blog will not show.
4. However, this next step is crucial. You must log in to your hosting account, domain account, or whatever and add a CNAME listing tied to your domain name. I use Hostway for my hosting account. So I logged into my domain name management ine the DNS manager section and added a CNAME in this fashion on the left I entered blog (it will not work if you enter blog.mccordweb.com) on the right I entered ghs.google.com and then clicked enter. This allows Blogspot to link up the blog properly to your custom domain. Any deviation and the custom domain will not work or be visible.

That’s it. Seems simple enough, but there was not concise information on the Web and clearly from the forums and blog posts on this topic many and I mean many people have had big problems with this set up.

You’ll want to subscribe to both of our blogs! Blog-World Watch and Web-World Watch.

Blog-World Watch is my newest endeavor and will focus on blogging, ghost blogging, blogging ethics, best blog practices, how to set up custom domains, and much more. It is the blog arm of our popular blog on search engines and search engine marketing.

As I use this blog and track its traffic in the next month or two, I will be creating a white paper about using Blogspot and the new Blogger interface for my clients. It will be a white paper that you surely will not want to miss.

I am in the process of launching a new blog called Blog-World Watch in preparation for a new white paper that I am thinking of doing on blogging.

I love the ability to use the new Blogger.com features but I do want to issue a warning about them.

1. If you are using FTP settings to send your blog to your website server now, you will not be able to use the best new Blogger features. They are not compatible with FTP blogging.
2. To use the new Ajax Blogger interface, your blog needs to be hosted at blogspot.com. You may want to consider using a custom domain, but I am a power user and even I am having trouble setting this up. Trouble, I mean BIG trouble. The Web is rife with complaints on the custom domain setting and configuration problems. If I figure it out, I will for sure post the resolution here.
3. I have real concerns about posting a blog to blogspot and whether your site will garner any search engine benefits as you do with FTP blogging. This is my reason for considering a white paper on the topic.

At this point, you can click my blog post title to see absolutely nothing at this point as the custom URL is still broken, but hopefully over time this will be resolved.

So, do I love the new Blogger – yes, but will I use it? Only if I can get the custom domain issue resolved. It appears that it requires a CNAME update in your DNS server information and possibly even the set up of a subdirectory domain on your server.