Google Blogger is great. It's easy to use, easy to modify templates and is completely free. The coolest feature through is the ability to use a custom domain name (either www.example.com, or www.subdomain.example.com) as your blog address.
This guide assumes you want your blog to be accessible from your own sub-domain (http://yoursubdomain.yourdomainname.com) and want to use CPANEL to do it.
You need to add both records to ensure your blog address is reachable using both url prefixes (http & www). Example: if you create only one CNAME record : "yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com." your blog will be reachable at http://yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com but unreachable at http://www.yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com. That's bad.... So add both.
Next Step : Configure Blogger's domain settings
Login to your blogger account. Go to "settings" -> "publishing". There will be an option to switch you to a custom domain. Click that link and you'll be presented with a field to input your custom domain name.
Since you're using a subdomain CNAME record, that's what you'll be using for your custom domain name. Use "yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com" as your custom domain name. Save your settings.
That's it. It may take 24 hours to 72 hours for your DNS settings to propagate so keep that in mind if things aren't working right away. Usually it takes less than this (sometimes minutes). In my particular case, one CNAME setting worked instantly, the other took over 4 hours to propogate for some reason.
Just remember that DNS propagation is out of your control, so don't panic if it doesn't work.
Trouble-shooting:
This guide assumes you want your blog to be accessible from your own sub-domain (http://yoursubdomain.yourdomainname.com) and want to use CPANEL to do it.
- Log in to your website's CPANEL (typically www.example.com/cpanel)
- Open the Simple DNS zone editor under the "domains" panel
- Choose the domain you'd like to use for your blogger subdomain if you own multiple ones
- Add the following CNAME records:
- Name: yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com.
- CNAME: ghs.google.com
- Name: www.yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com.
- CNAME: ghs.google.com
You need to add both records to ensure your blog address is reachable using both url prefixes (http & www). Example: if you create only one CNAME record : "yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com." your blog will be reachable at http://yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com but unreachable at http://www.yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com. That's bad.... So add both.
Next Step : Configure Blogger's domain settings
Login to your blogger account. Go to "settings" -> "publishing". There will be an option to switch you to a custom domain. Click that link and you'll be presented with a field to input your custom domain name.
That's it. It may take 24 hours to 72 hours for your DNS settings to propagate so keep that in mind if things aren't working right away. Usually it takes less than this (sometimes minutes). In my particular case, one CNAME setting worked instantly, the other took over 4 hours to propogate for some reason.
Just remember that DNS propagation is out of your control, so don't panic if it doesn't work.
Trouble-shooting:
- CNAME records end with "." <-- that's not a punctuation element up there :)
- If your CPANEL doesn't have a DNS zone editor, contact your webhost's support department. A decent webhost will be using an updated version of CPANEL and should be avail. upon request. If they absolutely will not enable it - then have them update your CNAME record manually. I recommend hostgator's services : their technical support is knowledgable, proffessional and available 24 hours a day. All my blog's CNAME entries are editable through hostgators CPANEL interface.
