How to set up your Blogger custom domain

After blogging for a while at a Blogspot.com address, you may decide it's time to upgrade to a custom domain (eg: yourblog.com). This is the least expensive method I've found of hosting your blog at a custom domain since Blogspot will still host your blog for free! All you need to do is pay a few pounds for your domain name, be it a dot.com, dot.co.uk, dot.info or whatever you choose!

The process is probably much simpler than you think! You don't need to worry too much about finding a host provider that is compatible with Blogger: any domain provider which allows you to alter the DNS records for your domain is compatible! Just make sure that you don't have to pay extra for this service (these days, most domain providers don't, but there is still the odd one around...).

Here's how to set up your Blogger custom domain:

1. Decide on your domain name, and register it with a domain name provider. There are literally hundreds of sites you can use (just do a Google search for "domain name providers"). My provider of choice is GoDaddy.com, since this site offers very low cost domains with free hosting, free email accounts and other features too. I'll explain shortly why having free hosting is very beneficial.

1. Once you've registered your new domain name, you'll need to change the DNS settings. DNS stands for Domain Name System: a DNS server determines what site a given address takes you to. You need to tell the DNS servers that visitors to your custom domain should be directed to your Blogspot blog, which is what we're doing here. You need to access the control panel for the DNS settings associated with your domain. Take a look at the CNAME records here. Is there a name/sub domain called WWW? If there is, you'll need to edit this; if not, you'll need to add a new CNAME record. In either case, you should enter the correct information as I'll explain next.

1. For the name/sub domain (this depends on what your provider calls it!), enter "www" and save (or click continue).

1. For your target host/destination/record (again, this is provider dependent) you need to enter "ghs.google.com". Save and continue. This is all you need to do with your domain provider!

1. It may take a few days for the DNS settings to come into effect, so it might be worth waiting a day or two before completing the next step, which is to associate your Blogspot account with your new domain.

1. Now, you should log into your Blogger account. In the "settings" area, click on the "publishing" tab near the top of the page and choose to set up your custom domain. In the text box, enter your new domain name (eg: www.example.com). Now when you preview your blog, you should see your custom domain in the address bar instead of your blogspot one!

Your old Blogspot address will automatically forward to your new domain, so you don't have to worry about losing any traffic. Also, since Blogger still hosts your domain, you'll have no worries about hosting or bandwidth.

However, there are a few points you should take note of when publishing to your custom domain.

Most important is this: you can only post to http://yourdomain.com or http://www,yourdomain.com. NOT BOTH! So before you enter your domain name in the Blogger settings be sure which of these you prefer to use.

My advice would be this: try to use a domain provider which offers some free hosting with your domain (this is why I'd recommend GoDaddy) and set your blog to be hosted at www.yourdomain.com. Then upload a simple redirect page as your index to your hosting account, which will redirect any visitors to www.yourdomain.com instead.

I don't consider this to be much of a problem. In fact it can be an advantage: having only the http:// or http://www in your blog address is that your Technorati ranking will be improved, since there will not be two entries for your blog (one at each sub domain, a problem I used to have with a hosted Wordpress blog). By redirecting your readers, they will always know where to find you, and you won't lose any traffic.

For a complete tutorial on registering your Blogger custom domain with GoDaddy, take a look at this post on the Glamumous blog. For detailed walkthroughs to register with other domain providers, this article on the Blogger help site can prove rather useful.

Should you have a custom domain for your blog?

If you only blog for family and friends, have no intention of generating a wide readership, or simply can't be bothered at working with your blog, then the answer is no, and you can ignore the rest of this post. I won't hold it against you! However, if you have any intention on becoming a serious blogger, then my answer to this is "YES DEFINITELY!".

Although this particular blog is relatively new (at the time of writing this post), I have been blogging in various places for over three years now. From what I've seen, read and personally experienced, having a custom domain name for your blog is a very good way to show your readers that you are a serious blogger who cares about what they write. It can also have many other benefits too, which I'll explain about shortly.

Having a free hosted blog address such as yourblog.wordpress.com or myblog.blogspot.com is perfectly fine when you're first starting out, but can become the blogging equivalent of having an AOL or Yahoo address, and may well imply that you don't care enough about your blogging identity to pay a few pounds for something more.

There are many options to purchasing a custom domain, and your choice depends on a number of factors:

• The blogging platform you use
• How much control you would like over your blog's performance and appearance
• How much you are willing to spend!

As you may be aware, I have chosen to publish my Blogger blog to a custom domain, which Blogger hosts for me. This is probably the least expensive and simplest method of having a custom domain for my blog. Bloggers on other platforms may have to choose a different option: Wordpress users would need to purchase a hosting package and host their blog software on their new domain; Typepad bloggers would need to map their new domain to their Typepad blog in addition to the blogging fees, and so on.

The choice is a very personal one, and my choice may not suit others so well. For example, one of my other blogs is a self-hosted Wordpress blog; I chose this option so that I would also have storage space to upload files to my domain, have extra "pages" in my blog to make it a more functional "website" for my content, and also to have maximum control over my add-ons and widgets. With both this and my Glamumous blog, I have realised that the new Blogger software is more adequate for my needs, and that the hosting is much more simplified.

Of course, there are many exceptions to my "rule" that successful blogs need a custom domain name; many popular blogs are hosted at shared Blogspot, Wordpres and Typepad domains because their content is great and readers keep coming back for more. But in my humble opinion, having a custom domain can really help your popularity.

Here's one final note: if you do intend to have a custom domain for your blog, do this sooner rather than later as it really avoids many of the pitfalls of redirecting readers, updating your blog address at various sites, and moving images/files/etc from one server to another. Trust me, it's worth the effort!