How to use a custom DNS name with blogger

So I finally broke down and registered nerdlogger.com with easydns.com. I’ve used their service for my own ayromlou.ca canadian domain, so I figured, why not. Under ayromlou.ca I was doing all kinds of redirects to get www.ayromlou.ca to point to nerdlogger.blogspot.com (which is the standard addressing scheme for blogs on blogger). Now, here is how I got my custom domain name (nerdlogger.com) to work:

  1. Obviously first register your domain name. I went over to easydns.ca (.com is the same company) and registered nerdlogger.com (I use the DNS-Only service & Registry Fees)
  2. Give them about 2-4 hours to propagate the DNS information. Do not change anything during this time.
  3. Now after about 4 hours go back and login. You should see the Members page and somewhere in there there should be a listing of the domains you own under domain settings. Click the DNS command next to the domain you want to use and you should see a page with a bunch of stuff relating to your brand new domain.
  4. Scroll down to hosts section and delete all the predefined hosts (click the check box next to them and delete).
  5. Now on that same page (you might have to navigate back to it from the members page) under aliases setup a CNAME (alias) for www with the corresponding A Record (host) for ghs.google.com and press next to submit it. Make sure it says www only and ghs.google.com and nothing else.
  6. Now you have to wait another couple of hours for the new information to propagate.
  7. Log back into your easydns account and check the domain information page it should have a CNAME (alias) for www.yoursite.com. (Note the terminating DOT) and a Point to A Record (host) of ghs.google.com. (Note the terminating DOT).
  8. Now log into your blogger account and switch to the settings page. Look under publishing tab and select Switch to: Custom Domain. Fill the Your Domain field with www.yoursite.com and press Save Settings.
  9. Wait another 10 minutes and try going to http://www.yoursite.com and/or http://yoursite.com. Both should work at this point.

Many Ayromlou

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4 responses to “How to use a custom DNS name with blogger”

  1. Many,

    My friend bought a domain name for my blog, which is called http://www.stemandroot.com. It works fine but with one small problem:

    I accessed http://www.stemandroot.com and then I clicked on one of my photos in that blog.

    Then I tried to go back to the previous page by clicking Back Button on my browser. I tried but I can’t. I’m stucked at the same page. Blogspot can’t trace my blog.

    My photos are stored in Picasa Web Albums.

    Any chance you can give me a hint on how to solve this problem? It would be very much appreciated.

    Regards,

    JJ

  2. Hi JJ,

    Hmmm, From what I can make out your DNS server is doing dynamic forward. You really should follow the original post and figure out how you can create a A Record and point it to ghs.google.com.

    – So you should be creating a A Record for stemandroots.com and point it to host ghs.google.com

    – You should also create a CNAME for host www and point it at ghs.google.com

    This will be different for your provider (I think you’re using directnic.com).

    Right now when I do a name resolution on stemandroots.com (or http://www.stemandroots.com) I get a resulting IP address of 69.46.230.40 which itself resolves to dn4.directnic.com

    My guess is dn4 is a dynamic name server that is forwarding requests for your name to blogspot.com. That’s not what you want. You need to do direct DNS lookup and point it to ghs.google.com and let google forward you to stemandroots.blogspot.com (which I assume is what you originally called your site).

    IMPORTANT: Notice that the “not being able to go back” behavior stops if you go to “http://stemandroot.blogspot.com/” and click on one of the images from there. Right now both stemandroot.com and http://www.stemandroots.com are forwarded and have issues with images linked off the page. BTW. If you click on the browser back button twice, it will actually go back to the blog page.

    Anyways……you need to fix your DNS first. Remember that DNS takes a while to propagate. Hope you solve it soon :-)

    TTYL
    Many

  3. Okay Many, thanks for your great helps.

    I will do my best to fix the problem by following your instructions.

    If anything, I will let you know.

    Thanks again Many. It is very much appreciated.

    Salutes. My hero.

    Regards,

    JJ

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