Look at the receipients of the "registration will renew automatically in X days" email to work out your domain-administration login name

This article is about how you can work out what Google Account to use to check custom domain renewal details from the reminder emails that Google sends in the month before the domain registration expires.

Domain registration warning emails

If you have a custom domain that you purchased through Blogger (when that service was available), and you have not transferred that registration to another domain registrar, then every year you will get a series of email messages like this:

The message text is:

Hello, Your domain name, yourDomain.com, is configured for automatic renewal with registrar REGISTRAR (usually enom or goDaddy) on DATE. Each registration renewal is valid for one year. Google will charge your account after the renewal is complete. To ensure uninterrupted service, please follow these directions to update your payment method if needed. If you don’t want to renew your domain name and continue using Google Apps, you should turn off automatic renewal under the ‘Domain settings > Domain names’ tab in your Google Apps Admin console at http://admin.google.com. Please do not reply to this email; replies are not monitored.

What you need to do

The specific action that you need to do varies, according to what you have set up before, and what policy changes Google may have had.

• You may need to verify that you accept the current billing arrangements. 
• You may need to check that the credit card which you have registered on your account is still valid (even if it was previously, it may have retired since).
• You may even want to cancel the renewal, and thus give up the custom domain (in which case, I'd suggest re-directing your blog back to blogspot, too).

The only way to check what is required is to log on to your Google Apps Domain Administration account, and see what it tells you to do.

And pretty much the only thing you should not do is nothing:  you almost certainly either need to check your credit card, or cancel the renewal.

How to log on to your Google Apps Domain Administration account

What account to log on to

Many people say that working out what Domain Administrator account they need to log in to is difficult - and some are (mistakenly) absolutely convinced that they were able to renew previously using only the Google account that they use to manage the blog.

Unfortunately, the name of the Domain Administrator account can vary, depending on when you purchased the domain and whether or not you set up an administrator account for it at that time.

But, based on the reminder message that Google are now sending, there is a simple way to work it out:  look at the addresses that the reminder email is sent to.  What I have noticed lately is that these are:

1. The Domain Administrator account, and 
2. The Blogger account that set up the blog

Once you clearly understand that:

• The Domain Administrator is not the same as your Blogger account, 
• The Domain Administrator probably has an account-name like    bloggeradmin@YourDomain.com   or    your-admin-name@YourDomain.com

then hopefully this will be enough to help you understand which account you need to use.

Then log on - adding the account to your list

Click on the link in the email, which will take you to the Google Apps Admin console ie http://admin.google.com

Most likely, the Domain Administrator account that you worked out above will not be in the list of accounts that Google knows about on your PC (for a range of reasons - including that this is probably an account that you only use once per year).  So you need to use the Add Account button at the bottom of the list ( you may need to scroll down to reach it).

Enter your full Domain Administrator account name    eg   bloggeradmin@YourDomain.com

Either enter your password, or click the Need Help / I don't know my password options to get Google to help you with the password.    

Click Sign In

... and then follow the steps in the screens that Google presents to set up your billing and / overify your credit card.

Note:   Logging in to this account is likely to log you out of your standard Blogger / Gmail account.   If for some reason you don't want this to happen, then you may need to use a different browser to do the Domain Administration login.

---

Related Articles:

Setting up your custom domain

Understanding Google and Blogger accounts

How to re-direct an old custom domain - and all its posts - to a new one

This article describes options for making link to a blog's old URL automatically point to the blog's new URL after a custom domain change.

If you have a blog made with Blogger which has a custom domain, then it's easy enough to switch this blog to use a different domain. Doing this moves both the content (posts and pages) and template (layout, structure, colour-scheme).

Often when people make this type of change, they want to set up re-directs so that if anyone clicks an external link to the old custom domain, they are re-directed to the same content on the new domain.
For example, www.old-domain.com/current-Page.html should redirect to www.new-domain.com/current-page.html.)

With many other website building tools, the .htaccess file for the site lets you set up re-directs like this. But things are little different when you use Blogger.

Your Blogspot address VS your custom domain

Your blog always has a blogspot addresss - let's call it: www.yourBlog.blogspot.com

When you publish to a custom domain, Blogger automatically handles the re-direction from www.yourBlog.blogspot.com to www.yourCustomdomain.com for you. This works at all levels, so the home page and every individual post/page are all redirected correctly.

To move your blog from from www.yourCustomDomain.com to www.newCustomDomain.com, you simply tell Blogger to

1. Stop publishing your blog to www.oldCustomDomain.com and then to
2. Start publishing it to www.newCustomDomain.com

(See Switching your blog to a different custom domain for more information about this.)

Once you have done this (and afer a little bit of transition time), Blogger handles the re-direction from www.yourBlog.blogspot.com to www.newCustomdomain.com for you - as before, this works at all levels, so the home page and every individual post/page are redirected correctly.

One point that many people mis-understand, is that after you have done this, there is no connection between Blogger and your old custom domain. You have various options (listed below) for what to do with www.oldCustomDomain.com - and you aren't limited to the features that Blogger offers. The only limits are based on what your domain registrar allows, and what tools you can (learn to) use.

Options for re-directing your old custom domain

Option 1: Registrar re-direction

Once you have stopped publishing your blog to www.yourCustomDomain.com, Blogger has no connection with it at all.

How you manage re-directions from it is totally up to the tools provided by the domain registrar. The simplest approach is to set up a "301 redirect" on the domain, which simply sends all traffic to it to another domain of your choice.

The method for setting this up depends on the tools used by your domain registrar - search their help files for terms like "301 redirect" to find out what is possible with tools.

See Using a custom domain for something other than your blog for advice about accessing your domain registrar account for the domain.

Advantages

• This is the easiest approach, and doesn't require you to make a website of any type.
• Visitors are automatically re-directed.

Disadvantages

• Depending on how the registrar's tools work, visitors may be automatically redirected to your new home page, not the the post that they specifically followed a link to.

Option 2: Another website tool

If you know how to use another website development tool that does provide access to the .htaccess file for the site, then you could make a "site" that just contains page-and-post level redirections for all your existing posts and pages.

Advantages

• This approach sends people to the exact content that they followed a link to.

Disadvantages

• It could be tedious setting this up for every post and page, if you have a lot of them at the time when you change domains.
• You need to choose and learn a very different type of website building tool to do this.

Option 3: use Blogger to make a site-level re-direction message

Make a totally new blog (eg    www.myBlogHasMoved.blogspot.com),

Publish it to your old custom domain

Give it one post that says

"www.oldCustomDomain.com has moved to www.newCustomDomain.com please update your links"

Use the Settings > Search preferences > Errors and redirections > Custom Redirect Custom Page Not Found  option to explain that your blog has moved, and send any traffic to that one post.

Advantages

• This is a simple approach, using tools that you already know.
• It will work forever (because blogspot domains don't expire).

Disadvantages

• Visitors will not be automatically redirected: the best you can do is show a link which goes to a selected post or page in your blog, which the visitor needs to click to go to the blog.
• The re-direction link is only to one specific page, not to the exact content that was linked to iniitially.  This is quite different from what many people want to achieve - blogger simply does not have that functionality.

A non-option: Blogger's custom redirect tool

Blogger has a function under Settings > Search preferences > Errors and redirections > Custom Redirects  that lets you set up custom redirects for individual pages.

However this isn't suitable when you change your custom-domain totally, because it only supports re-direction within the same blog, not to an external URL.

(And anyway, if you have a significant number of posts, it would not be practical.)

Other options?

Have you found any other ways around this? Or any good tool for setting up .htaccess redirects on a domain that you used to use for a blog?  Share your experience in the comments area below.

---

Related Articles:

Using a custom domain for something other than your blog

Linking your blog and your website.

How to make a real website using Blogger

Switching your blog to a different custom domain

SEO Basics for Bloggers

What "Another blog or Google Site is already using this address" really means

This article explains what "Another blog or Google Site is already using this address" means when you see it while setting up a custom domain for your blog - and what you can do to fix it.

What is a custom domain

A custom domain is a "real" website address, instead of the free one that you get when you first set up a blog using Blogger.   It's one of he essential steps if you want to use Blogger to make a "real" website.   For example:

• You initially set up    www.yourBusiness.blogspot.com
• Then you hear that people will treat you with more respect if you have www.yourBusiness.com  or www.yourBusiness.co.uk. 

In this case, www.yourBusiness.com  and   www.yourBusiness.co.uk   are both "custom domains", ie web-addressed without "blogspot.com" or "wordpress.com" at the end of the address.

To use www.yourBusiness.com, you need to either use Blogger's custom domain wizard - available under Settings > Basic > Publshing +Buy a custom domain.

To use www.yourBusiness.co.uk   (or any other type of URL that Blogger doesn't offer), you need to firstly buy the URL from another domain registrar, and then use a similar procedure to use that URL for your blog.

Sometimes things go wrong

If you're lucky - and most people are - then setting up your blog to use your custom domain is a smooth process:   there are a few minutes where your new address doesn't quite work for you, and a few hours while it doesn't work for people around the works.   But the computers all catch up with each other fairly quickly and within 24-72 hours it's working perfectly.

But sometimes things go wrong - and that is when you see this message in one of Blogger's screens:

Another blog or Google Site is already using this address

Mostly (pretty much always, in fact), this doesn't mean that another blog is using the address that you just paid $10 for.

What it means is that something has gone wrong with the process of setting up the domain for your blog.   Nothing more, and nothing less.

You can check this by looking at what happens when you try to navigate to the address.   Most probably you will see something like this:

That's what I see using Google Chrome - other browsers will display it a little differently, and Google may change the picture from time to tile.   But the key part is the "404" error code, which says that there is no website currently using the address.

How to fix it

The Masterclass:

Chuck from Nitecruzr.net has recently published a comprehensive article about the various sources of this message, and how to fix it.    As he explains, it's not so much an error message as a symptom.   Basically, it's Blogger's way of saying "there's a problem with your URL setup".

His post may look daunting at first; there's a lot of technical language, and you need to delve into all sorts of places you may not have looked before, including setting up an administrator account for your domain in the registrar. And just to make it more complicated, Google changed they way that they offer domains (by removing free single-user accounts in Google Apps) in January 2013, so now it also depends on when you purchased the domain, too.   But it's worth trying to work out the problem, and its solution yourself, before asking for help (see below). You will learn about how Blogger works with custom domains, and it stops the help-forum people being overloaded with questions.

Methods that used to work

When I've had this problem in the past, the first thing I did was to check that Google Sites was disabled on my Apps account. This was easy, and often effective, but I suspect it's not so relevant any more.

Another older approach was to enter the custom-domain into the Magical Custom Domain Form, and wait 48 hours to see if Google have fixed it. In the background, the Google staff would check domain settings and fix up problems if they could. However it looks like that process isn't supported any more: clicking the link now brings up a message

We're sorry.The form at this URL could not be found. Make sure that you have the right URL and that the owner of the form hasn't deleted it. 

Asking for help

If you really cannot work out a solution, then post a question in the Blogger Product Forum - I usually use the "How do I" category.    Include:

• Your blog's URL     (eg   yourBusiness.blogspot.com)
• The URL you are trying to use   (eg yourBusiness.com or yourBusiness.co.uk)
• Whether you bought the URL thru Blogger, or from another domain registrar
• Details of all error messages you are seeing

Post the details into a new question (use the big red "Post a Question")button - don't try to hijack someone else's question, because their problem and solution will probably be different, for this particular error message.

Make sure your question has a meaningful title   (eg  "Custom domain - another blog or site is hosted"):   many helpers don't read questions with generic titles like "help" which don't give any clues about what skills are needed to answer the question.

If your question doesn't get answered in a day or two, post an update in the same thread - even something as simple as the word "bump" will take your question up to the top of the pile again, and tell the helpers that you are actively looking for help with the problem.

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Related Articles:

Using Blogger to make a proper website

Using a website address from another domain registrar for your blog

Setting up an administrator for a custom domain purchased through Blogger

Using an URL from domainDiscount24 for a blog

This article shows Blogger users, who have purchased a domain through Google Apps using domainDiscount24 (dd24.com), how to set up the 2nd CNAME statement that is needed by  Blogger's custom-domain verification step. 

Most of the information also applies to any who purchased a domain from Key Systems / DomainDiscount24 / dd24 and wants to use it for a Blogger blog.

Why buy a custom domain from Google Apps

A while ago, I noted that Google Apps now provide the ability to buy a range of domains not available via Blogger - for example co.nz (New Zealand), .com.es (Spain), .in (India), .de (Germany) -and many more.

Although they advertising that pricing is "from $US8", when I finally used Apps to buy my co.nz domain, the actual cost was $US20. C'est la vie.   And besides, anything to make the setup-process easier is welcome - and this is a feature of domains purchased using Google Apps.

One good thing that I noticed about buying a domain via Apps is that you set up a domain-administrator account as part of the process.  Though it's a bit more "technical" than many Bloggers are used to, it's better to have the admin account set up to start with, instead of having to try to find it when you want to check the settings, access the email that comes with your domain, or use the URL for some other type of website.

Also, after the domain administrator account was set up, the details for logging on to my registrar account were emailed to me.   This is a nice touch - it's possible to get the details from the domain-administrator account, but having them at hand during the setup process was handy.

What happens when you buy a domain through Google Apps for your blog

Google are partnering with several domain registrars for domains registered via Apps, and my one came from domainDiscount24 (dd24.com) - which is actually the brand-name of a German company called Key Systems.   I was a little concerned at first, about whether this would work with Blogger - but my fears were soon put to rest.

Once you have purchased a domain through Google Apps, the domain settings that are automatically configured for you are aimed at having the domain used with Google Sites.
(Does anyone actually build websites using Sites? I'm reluctant to, out of concern that Google are going to "spring clean" it out of existence!)

This isn't exactly what you need, but it's a good start:

• The CNAME for the www "sub-domain" was pointed to  ghs.google.com - which is what Blogger needs.
• The ANAME records that were set up had the correct values, as per Blogger's requirements.

So the only challenge is setting up the second CNAME record that is now part of the security verification for switching to a custom domain.

How to set up a 2nd CNAME record for a domain from domainDiscount24

In domainDicsount24 term, this is done by creating another sub-domain that is named after the host-value from Blogger's instrutions, and giving it a txt record with the 2nd value.  
(NB  I think that technically  you are not actually creating a "real" subdomain - but that's the phrase that DD24 used to describe what needs to be done.)

Follow these steps

1   Log on to the dd24.com website with the account information (get this from the Google Apps> Domains> Advanced Settings tab - or from the email that they sent you after you set up the administrator account.)


2  Click on the domain name


3  In the upper right is a drop down menu where you can access and create all sub-domains for your domain name (I was using a netbook so had to scroll to see it)


4  Choose Create New Subdomain from this menu,


5  Enter the "Name, Label or Host" field value from Blogger.  
(See Using a domain purchased from another registrar if you're unsure where to get this information from Blogger - remember that it's specific to your blog, and each pair of values is valid for around 24 hours.)


6  Click Create Subdomain.


7  In the window that opens, specify the settings:

• Put the "Destination, Target or Point to" value from Blogger into the field called CName.
• Under DNS settings, leave Source set to "Not in use"
• Under Mail settings, leave Source set to "Not in use"

8  Save the dns settings, by clicking Verify Changes.


Job done - at this point, your second CNAME has been created, and you can log out from the domainDiscount24 site and go back to Blogger to continue he custom domain setup there, as described in Using a domain purchased from another registrar.

domainDiscount24 warn that, as always, may take several hours until DNS changes take effect - however recently I was able to re-direct my blog to the custom domain within Blogger almost immediately.

The only additional step that I needed to do was use the Apps dashboard to make the web-address work without having www at the front (Blogger has this option to tick, but it appeared not to be working.)

And I was pleased to notice that, after the domain purchase had verified properly, I did not have to enable  accounts from my custom domain to use Blogger - it was turned on by default.   (This didn't happen immediately, there was a time delay while the Google Apps purchase was verified.   But it did work eventually).

About domainDiscount24

Of course I didn't work this out myself - I had to get help from domainDiscount24 to figure out how to do the 2nd CNAME record, since the word "cname" wasn't on the front of the domain management tool for my domain.

They don't seem to have on-line help articles.

But when I clicked their Help button:

• I was sent to a nice web-form where I could submit my question. 
• An answer arrived within 3-4 hours (even though I'd sent my query at 1am, German time).
• The answer was correct - and it showed that they clearly understood the question, had checked what was set up so far.

So overall, I'm a happy customer, and now I just need to work on building my new site.

And I think I'll keep domainDiscount24 in mind if I'm looking to buy more domains in the future, including some of the ones that Google Apps doesn't provide access to as yet.

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Related Articles:

Google Apps now provide the ability to buy a range of domains not available via Blogger

Using a domain from another registrar for your blog

Making custom domains work without having www at the front

Allowing custom domain users to access Google's Blogger - the website making tool for the rest of us

Making custom domains work without the www at the start

This Quick-Tip is about an issue that some people have had with their "naked" custom domain not re-directing to the www-at-the-start version, and how to fix it using a feature in your Google Apps account.

Since Blogger released their initial fix to the custom-domain mapping problem of mid-September 2012, some people have found that it's not possible to set up the custom domain so that my-domain.xxx works as well as www.my-domain.xxx does.

There is an option for this in Blogger's Settings > Publishing area.  But last night, when I set up a "subdomain" style entry for news.my-domain.xxx and directed my latest-updates blog from my-domain.blogspot.com to news.my-domain.com, found that this didn't work.
(Obviously I didn't use my-domain.com - but the principle applies.)

However today I found an approach that does seem to fix this:

1   Log in to the Google Apps domain administration account (the same one you used to set up the 2nd CNAME record - if you don't know how to get into it, some of the information here may help)

2   Go to Domain Settings > Domain Names, a

3   Sroll down to where it says:  Redirect the naked domain (http://YOUR-DOMAIN.INFO) to ... (whatever it says now)

4   Click the Change Redirect link under this.

5   Make sure that www (lower case) is entered in the field.

6   Click save.


I cannot guarantee that this will always fix the problem.   But it did for me just now, and I've seen a couple of other posters saying that it helped them too.    So I thought it was worth sharing.

Using a domain purchased from another domain registrar or blogging-platform for your Blogger blog

This article is about how to use a domain (URL) that was purchased outside of Blogger / Google as the custom-domain for your blog.
 
Blogger and custom domains

The easiest way to give your Blogger blog a custom domain is to pick an URL that is currently available and purchase it through the Settings > Publishing  tab.   If that is s successful, all you need to do is set up an administrator account for your domain.   (Sept 2012:  this option is currently unavailable - hopefully it will be back soon.)

But sometimes the URL you want will not be available through Google / Blogger:

• Maybe it's owned by someone else
• Maybe you own it  already, because you purchased it through another domain registrar.  
• Maybe you don't have a credit-card so cannot purchase through  Google.  
• Maybe it's for a country that Blogger doesn't sell domains for (eg Ireland).

In these cases, you can't use Blogger to manage the domain.  Instead, you need to buy it another way - or get control of it if someone else already owns it.

Then after you own the domain, you need to set it up with the correct settings to work with Blogger.   To do this, you need to use the settings information that Blogger provides and the domain management tools (usually a control panel, aka CPanel) provided by your domain registrar.

If you are buying a domain from a registrar

If you need to (or already have) obtained them domain name through a domain registrar, you need to  purchase both:

• Name registration, and 
• DNS Hosting

You do not need to purchase file-hosting from them, because Blogger provides this for our blogs.

There are some registrars that don't offer domain hosting separately from other hosting packages.   In this case, it's your choice whether to use this company or to use another one.   There is no harm in purchasing file hosting that you are are not going to use - except that it's a waste of money.

If you find that your registrar doesn't offer DNS Hosting at all (unlikely) or that you don't want to pay the fee that the charge (which may be quite high if they only sell it with file hosting), then you need to transfer the domain to another registrar (which does offer DNS hosting) before you can use it for your blog.



Setting up a domain for your blog

Once you have control of the URL, follow these steps to set up your blog on it:


Go into www.Blogger.com and using the now-standard (ie post Sept 2011) interface.  


In  Settings > Basic >  Publishing > + Add a custom domain >  Switch to Custom Domain > 

1. Fill in your domain name, then
2. Click Settings instructions
3. If you are told "You have unsaved changes that will be lost.   Leave this page anyway"  (or similar) - choose OK / Leave this page.

This opens a page of instructions which contains the values you need to use in the next step.


At the top of the page, you are asked the following question.

Where would you like to host your blog?

•  On a top-level domain (www.example.com).

•  On a subdomain (foo.example.com).

If you don't understand this, just click on the top-level-domain option.   (If you do understand it, you don't need me to tell you which option to choose!)



2)    In the domain-management tool for your domain, set up the DNS records (ie CNAME and AName records), using the values from the page that is opened.

The way of setting up the domain records is different for every registrar.  You may need to read the help file, or ask the domain registrar's customer services department for help.   Or, if your domain registrar is GoDaddy, then this tool makes it especially easy.  (That said - at the moment it is not setting up the 2nd CNAME record for you - still need to do it yourself.)

You need to setup up two CNAME records.

• The first CNAME record should have your domain URL and ghs.google.com
• The values for the second CNAME record are buried in the text of the instructions page - I've underlined them in the following picture to help you find them.   (Hopefully Blogger will make this easier to read soon.)

You also need to set up four ANAME records - see further down in Google's instructions page for the values to use for these.


Wait an hour, and then go into www.Blogger.com again   (NB  you may not need to wait the full hour, but it's safer).  
NB   If you wait too long, then the 2nd CNAME combination that Google gave you will have expired, and you will have to do that step again,    So I'd suggest waiting an hour, and no more.


In Blogger, go to  Settings > Basic > Publishing > + Add a custom domain >  Switch to Custom Domain > 

• Fill in your domain name (yes, again).
• Click Save (just under the pane)

If get a message

We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 32. Please follow the settings instructions.

then you did not get the set-up in correct in your domain-registrar (or maybe you haven't waited long enough - or waited too long!)


If you do not see that message, then your re-direction was successful.   However you may need to allow a bit of time (maybe a few minutes, maybe as long as three days) for the changes to take effect.

Test whether they have been applied by typing your custom-domain into a web-browser:  you should be taken to your Blogger blog.

Ask for help if you need it:

There are many things that can go wrong when you are setting up a custom domain, and error messages like "Another blog is already hosted at this address" are quite common.

If the process described above doesn't work after three days (72 hours), or if you get an error message other than "site not found" before that,  the post a new question in the Blogger Product Forum:  Include these details:

• Your custom-domain name / URL, 
• Your blogsplot URL 
• The date andtime that you made the change (don't forget to include your timezone)
• A description of what's happening.

Some of the helpers in BPF are expert at diagnosing what's wrong and telling you how to fix the domain, and very happy to help provide you give them the information that the need to work out what's wrong. 

What if someone else owns the domain

Before you start, you need to own, or at least control, the domain.

If someone else currently owns a URL that you want to use, you need to:

• Negotiate with them, and get them to agree to transfer the domain to you
• Set up an account with a domain registrar
  (GoDaddy are the registrars that Google currently uses for Blogger users:  if you use them, you can be certain that the domain-management tools provided will do everything Blogger needs you to do.
  GoDaddy also have a tool that makes it extra easy to use one of their domains for Blogger - log in to your GoDaddy account, and go here to access it).
• Using that domain-registrar account, request that the domain is transferred to you
• Do anything else (eg make a payment) that you told the current owner that you would do (eg make a payment)
• Make sure that the current owner does whatever is needed to transfer the account to you.

Even though Blogger provides some "nice" tools that make URL management easier for "first time buyers" of custom domains, they are not a domain registrar themselves.  This means you cannot transfer a domain that was purchased through another domain registrar to Blogger / Google.   Instead, you need to follow the steps below to use the domain-name for your blog.



A note about Google Apps and Sites domains:
If you purchased a domain through Google Apps or Google Sites, then you already have control over it.

But you may need to disable sites in the account management screen before you can use the domain for your blog.

And after you have done this, you can go straight to Step 3 of the next section, because the CName and AName records are (already set up to use Google's servers.

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Related Articles:

Setting up an administrator account for your new custom domain.

Switching your blog from one custom domain to another.

Using a custom domain that you own for something other than Blogger

Why RSS / Subscribe to Posts matters for your blog.

Putting a custom search engine on your blog

Stop malicious use of your AdSense account ID.

Google Blogger / Apps access to country-specific domains

Today, Google Apps announced that we can now purchase a wider range of global and country-specific domains through them - previously they only offered a more limited set of the global domains. And now they're cheaper, too: domains registration is $8/year instead if $10.

To do this, they've partnered with a new-to-them domain registrar http://www.domaindiscount24.com - instead of eNom and GoDaddy, who they used before

If you buy a domain via Google Apps, and DomainDiscount24.com is the registrar, then

• It comes pre-set up to work with Google's tools (mail, apps, sites, etc)
• You need to use DomainDiscount24.com's administration tools if you want to make any changes to the domain set-up
• You continue to use Google Apps domain management tools to manage the Google Services that are available to users in the domain (eg enabling/disabling Blogger)

Can we use one of these domains for Blogger?

I'd guess so: I'm pretty sure that Sites, like Blogger, requires that the domain-registrar provide DNS-hosting and the ability to edit CNAME and ANAME records.  You simply have to go through the same process that you need to use if you purchase a domain directly from any registrar.

(I'm going to test this very soon, there's a .co.nz domain that I've been thinking about for a while>

Will they work automatically with Blogger?

Not always: domain setup is a complex thing, and it's hard to predict if you will get the dreaded "Another blog is already hosted as this address" message:  I've purchased a domain via Google Apps before and and it work perfectly with Blogger - and I've had just the opposite experience, too.

If you get stuck, try either

• Use the information in this recent article from Chuck at Nitecruzr (he's one of the best for resolving custom domain issues)
• Going to the Blogger Product Forum: explain your problem and URL and ask the experts there to take a look.

Can we use this new registrar to buy country-specific domains inside Blogger?

Not at the moment, and - there's been no announcement from Blogger about it.

(Sideline:   I just tested it, and found that eNom is no longer offered as an option for domain-purchase under Blogger's switch-to-custom-domain track.   This means that GoDaddy, who not have a tool to make custom domain purchases easier, are now the only option inside Blogger - so I can see why Google might be looking to bring another registrar-partner on board.)

What domains are now available to purchase via Google Apps:

Global
.com    .info   .org    .net     .mobi     .biz     .name     .cc    .tv


Asia-Pacific
India: .in .co.in .org.in .net.in
New Zealand: .co.nz
Taiwan: .com.tw
Japan: .jp

Latin America
Colombia .co .com.co
Mexico:   .com.mx .mx

Europe
Belgium: .be
Switzerland: .ch
Czech Republic: .cz
Germany / Deutchland .de
Spain / Espana .es and .com.es
Republic of Montenegro: .me (though it has obvious wider appeal to English speakers!)
The Netherlands .nl
Poland .pl

Are domains for all countries available - why not?

There are still far more countries not on the list than on it.

I'm not surprised that there is no sign of Ireland (.ie) on the list -  these domains are hard to get.  I do manage one .ie site with Blogger:  the domain was obtained for a community group that doesn't have a company registration number, but which does have letterhead, a constitution and a well-connected chairman.   For it, I've found that LetsHost.ie provides the necessary domain management tools and their support people were helpful and didn't turn up their noses when I told them I was using it for a Blogger site.

Disappointing ommissions: Australia (.com.au) and England/Britain (.co.uk) - I'm not sure what the story is with these, or which registrars provide the tools needed to let you use a domain purchased from them with blogger.

Enabling Blogger on Google Apps domains

For Google Apps accounts, access to Blogger is controlled by the domain administrator.  This article shows why domain administrators may want to turn off Blogger access, for their domains - and describes how to enable Blogger access if required.

Blogger and Google Apps Domains

Previously I've described Google Accounts,  the difference between Google and Google Apps accounts, and the work being done to resolve conflicting accounts.  

People who have Google accounts can use Blogger by going to www.Blogger.com.   But for Google Apps account users, access to Blogger is controlled by the domain administrator.  There are reasons why domain administrators may not want their users to have Blogger.    But there may be times when it is appropriate, so this post shows how to enable Blogger access, too.

Why limit Blogger access:

Reasons why domain administrators (from commercial companies at least) might not want to allow their users to use Blogger with their domain account, include:

• It doesn't feel like work:

Other Google products accessed with domain accounts can be set to use the domain-owner's logo.  So they look like a company tool, even though they're provided by Google.   This reminds people that they should only use the accounts to do things that are appropriate "at work".   But Blogger cannot (currently) be set up in this way - people who are using it may forget that they are using a work / organisation tool, and may be tempted to publish personal material using the account.

• Access control:

Firstly, there is currently no way to use Blogger to publish a blog that can be read by everyone using the domain, and not seen by anyone outside it.    This means that Blogger cannot be used for company businesses that should not be shared outside the company.    (The closest option in Blogger is to set up a private blog and invite people to read it - but there is a maximum of 100 invitations ever, and besides this option does open some security holes.)

• What happens when people leave

In well-managed companies, when a person leaves their domain account is deleted (perhaps after a month or two, in case they come back).    If someone has made a document or blog using domain account, and that domain account is deleted, then it's likely that the document or blog will be deleted too.   This isn't such a big deal for documents:  they can be transferred to other accounts.    But even though there is a procedure for transferring ownership of blogs, there are some items commonly found inside blogs (eg pictures, videos) that cannot be transferred given the tools that Google offer at the moment.

No Blogger access at all?

There may be times when it is appropriate to allow people to access Blogger through your domain accounts.

Currently, this is all-or-nothing:  either you give access to everyone or no one.   Google Apps doesn't have a way to let you give access to small group of your users.

If you want to give access, follolw the  procedure outlined below.    However note that it's possible to turn access off again as quickly as it was turned on.   If you do need to allow access to let a person "rescue" a blog that is attached to a domain account, it should be easy enough to arrange a limited time with them, during which they can log on, and at least give another, non-domain, account administrator access to the blog.

Also, this isn't about blocking all access to Blogger.com from the workplace.   It's only about what people can do with their "company" domain account.   If someone really wants to use Blogger at work and/or for work purposes, they can still set up a separate Google account and use that for Blogger (provided the overall security policies let them do so).    This account is an asset that needs to be managed (just like their office keys, credit card, work mobile, official Twitter account, Facebook page access, etc) - it's just not inside your domain.

How to turn on Blogger access in your domain

1. Go to the Google Apps control panel, and sign in to the domain-management function.
2. Log in, using an account with domain administration rights.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Go to the Organization & Users tab
4. Switch to the Services sub-tab
5. Scroll down to the Other Google Services category
6. Note the Terms of Service issue described on the screen - only continue if this does not cause a problem for your company etc.
7. Find Blogger in the list   (it's currently 2nd in my list, so easy to find).
8. Click the On button beside Blogger, so it goes green.
   
   
   
   
   
9. Click the Save changes button at the bottom of the list.

This will allow every user in your domain to use Blogger, by logging in to www.Blogger.com with the domain account that you set up for them.

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Related Articles:



Procedure for transferring blog wnership

Understanding Google accounts

The difference between Google and Google Apps accounts

Resolving conflicting Google and Google apps accounts.

Restricting your blog's readers isn't as secure as you'd imagine

Setting up your custom domain

Google Apps, Google Accounts and Blogger

This article is about Google Apps:  what it is, how to access it, and what the account-names look like.   It discusses the great similarity between Google and Google Apps accounts, and looks at some of the small differences between them and how these relate to Blogger.

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps is a group of on-line applications and services that Google package together.  They are sold as a service to companies and other organisations, and people (individuals and companies/organisations) can use services on Apps for free, for up to 10 users.

You can sign up for Google Apps, using either a custom-domain that you purchased from another domain registrar, or by purchasing a domain-name (ie URL) through Google.

Also, people who purchase a custom-domain through Google / Blogger or Sites are strongly recommended to set up one Google Apps account to administer their domain with, and may create up to 10 user-accounts in the domain.  

Google Apps account-names are  groups of letters and numbers that look like an email address,  for example, Joe.bloggs@ACompany.com.

Initially Google Apps included things like:

• Docs (to replace MS Word etc)
• Spreadsheets (to replace Excel etc)   
• Presentations (to replace PowerPoint),
• Google-mail which looked and worked very much like Gmail in regular Google accounts - but was still different (to replace Outlook / Exchange) etc.
• Google Sites (for point-and-click website creation)

Today, many other software-as-a-service applications have been added to this list.

Google accounts vs Google Apps account

Initially, and until late 2010 / early 2011, a Google Apps account was NOT the same as a Google account, even though they appeared similar in many ways.  If an Apps user (even the domain Administration) wanted to use AdSense, Blogger, Picasa-web-albums, Google Maps, and some other applications from Google, then s/he needed to set up a separate Google account.

However since sometime in early 2011, Google Apps has been extended to include almost all the services that were previously available to Google accounts.   Effectively this means that now a Google Apps account is almost totally the same thing as a Google account.

To make this happen, Google had to resolve conflicting Google and Google Apps accounts.  This included asking owners of Google accounts with the same name as Google Apps accounts to choose a new name for their account.  They have also transitioned existing Google Apps accounts to Google, which has seen domain administrators get a flurry of warning emails.


Using Blogger with a Google Apps account

Today, if you have a Google Apps account, you can use it to log in to Blogger, Picasa, etc just like you did with a Google account, and you can do things like transfer blog ownership to Google Apps accounts.

The only exception is if your domain administrator has restricted your access to certain services.   For example, if your domain administrator has turned Blogger off for users in your domain, and you try to use Blogger with that account, you get a message like this:

It reads:

This service is not available
Blogger is not available for YOURDOMAIN.XXX. Learn more about Google products that you can use with YOUR-LOGIN@YOURDOMAIN.XXX.
If you are the Google Apps administrator, please read these articles to learn more about controling user access to Google Apps services and turning services on/off for certain users.
Did you use this product with a different Google Account? Sign out of your current Google Account and then sign in to the account that you want.

The only way around this is to ask your domain administrator to give access to Blogger (which they may be unwilling to do because it means giving access to all users in the domain, not just you) or to use another, different, Google account for Blogger.


Apps Security vs Blogger Security
Security restrictions that your domain administrator has set in Google Apps don't currently apply in Blogger.   For example, Google Docs may be set up so that only people in your domain (eg company) can see your documents.  But this if you create a blog in Blogger, this uses the Blogger security setting that you impose (under Settings > Permissions) - and by default it will be visible to the whole world.  This is why some domain administrators are not keen to enable Blogger for users in their domains.

(I haven't investigated, but it's likely that the same thing applies to other apps that were previously accessed via Google accounts not Google Apps accounts - eg Picasa.)

Other Google-account tools:
There are a few Google products that currently are not available using Google Apps accounts:

• Buzz
• Health
• Powermeter
• Google Profiles
  (NB  Blogger Profiles are available in the usual way via the Blogger Dashboard > Edit Profile link)

(ref:  http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=182213&hl=en&ctx=ch_b%2F0%2FServiceNotAllowed&p=blogger)

Again, if you want to use these applications, you need to use another, different, Google account.

Google Sites:
Some Bloggers use Google Sites, accessed with their Google account, to host files.

Currently, the Google Sites login screen that gives a choice between logging in with a Google Account, or with a Google Apps account, like this:

Despite this, if the Sites service is enabled for your domain, you can use your Google Appts account details to log in via the top, Google Account, part of the screen.  And if you choose the "Sign in with a Google Apps Account" link, the screen now asks for your email address (ie your account name), and simply puts it in the top part of the screen and asks for your password there.

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Related Articles: 



Understanding Google accounts

Resolving conflicting Google and Google Apps accounts

Setting up your custom domain

Auto-renewing your blog's custom domain

AdSense and AdWords - understanding the difference

File hosting options

Using a "foreign" custom domain for your blog

Transferring blog ownership

Auto-renewing your blog's custom domain

You can make sure that your custom domain name is (or isn't) automatically renewed each year, if you purchased it through Blogger or through Google Apps.

What is renewing a custom domain about?

If you have purchased a custom domain (eg www.fred-fish.com), then you have the right to use that name for however long you purchased it for.   How long that is depends on the contract with the domain-registrar (ie the company that you purchased it from).

If you purchase a domain through Blogger (and thus through one of eNom or GoDaddy), the only option you have is to buy it for one year.

After the term of your contact is finished, you need to either buy it again or switch your blog to use another domain name (perhaps your old blogspot name).   And if you don't buy the domain again, someone else will be able to buy it.

If your custom domain name is important to you (and it will be if your blog is successful), then you will want to make sure that you have done the "paperwork" to re-purchase well before it's due to expire.   Your domain registrar should send you a reminder email about a month before the registration is due - but it's sometimes very easy to miss details like this.

Luckily, Google makes it easier by providing an option to automatically renew your domain each year.

Using the auto-renew option

When you first purchase a domain, one of the questions is whether to automatically renew the registration each year.   I usually answer "no" because I don't want my credit card charged with something I didn't specifically authorise.

But there are some domains that have become very important to me, and I want to be certain that they are renewed.  So I'm prepared to turn auto-renew on for them.

Follow these steps to turn domain auto-renew on:

1  Go to Google Apps   (www.google.com/apps)


2  Sign in by entering your domain name, and choosing Domain Management.


3  Log in with the administrator account that you set up when you first purchased the custom domain - remember that this may now be called bloggeradmin, if you purchased it more recently.

If you see an "Account Management" screen after logging in, then you may need to Go to Google Apps   (www.google.com/apps) again - sometimes it may take you to the wrong screen if you were logged into a regular Google account at the start.


4  Choose the Domains tab from the Admin Console.


5  Make sure that the the Automatic Renewal check-box is set to on, ie ticked (or off / unticked if you don't want to auto-renew).


6 Press Save Changes  (which only appears after you have made a change on the page)

What happens next

If the Auto-renew option is ticked, then about a month before the renewal is due Google sends you an email to remind that that it's going to occur.  

After that, at the appropriate time, Google charges the credit-card associated with your Google Apps account (ie the one you used to purchase the domain) for a one-year renewal.

The one thing that you need to do is make sure that the credit card that you have linked to the Google account is still valid.

You can find more information about Domain payments on this Google help page.

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Related Articles

Checking the credit card that is linked to your account

Setting up an administrator for your custom domain

Transferring Blog Ownership.

Understanding Google accounts

Switching your blog from one custom domain to another

This article is about how you can change a Blogger blog to use a different custom domain.

Overiew

Previously, I've described how to use a domain that you bought from  Google / Blogger for something other than a Blogspot blog.  But sometimes, you may want to keep using the blog, but switch it between custom domains - ie give it a different URL.

Example:
Fred  started out with fred-goes-fishing.blogspot.com, and initially purchased fred-fish.com.   But after using that for a while, he found that it wasn't quite right, so he changed to  FredsFishyTales.com.

There are several ways to do this, but the simplest, and I believe most successful, is to:

1)  Switch the blog back to use Blogspot (for a short time), and then
2)  Repeat the custom domain purchase and switch process for the new domain, and
3)  Tidy up the old custom domain.

Switching the blog back to Blogspot:

1  Log in to Blogger with the account that owns the domain.

2  From the Dashboard,

In pre-Sept-2011-Blogger (the old interface):  choose    Settings > Publishing > Switch to:  blogspot.com 

In pre-Sept-2011-Blogger (the old interface):  choose    Settings > Basic, and in the Publishing area click on the cross to the right of the Edit link

This changes your blog back to be www.YOUR-BLOG-NAME.blogspot.com, and removes the DNS records that pointed your blog to the old custom-URL.

It may take a few hours (I've heard up to 72) for these changes to be applied to computers around the world, so people who go to the old custom domain may still get re-directed to your blog for a day or two. 

Apparently it can take some time for Comments to be switched back, so before doing the next step you may want to wait for a short while, a couple of hours or maybe even a couple of days.

Switching the blog to the new custom domain:

1)  Make sure that the Google account which you want to own the new domain has administrator rights to the blog.

(This isn't an issue if you only have one Google account, but may be worth thinking about if you plan to transfer the blog to someone else in future.)
 
2)  Log in to Blogger with that account

3)  From the Settings > Publishing tab, choose Switch to Custom Domain

4)  Use the standard blogger method of buying the new domain.

I very strongly recommend setting up an administrator account for the new domain so that you can manage this domain in the future

If you are asked if you want to enable Sites, answer NO.

If all goes well, your blog should now be pointing to the new web-site address that you have purchased.   If there's a problem, post a question in the Blogger Help Forum.  Include the URL of your blog and the domain name (aka URL, website-address) that you're trying to switch to.

Once the new custom domain is working, you way also want to change the source for any RSS feeds that were coming from the old domain.


Cleaning up the old custom domain:

Even if you don't want it any more, you still own the old custom domain for as long as you had purchased it for.   If you got it from Google, this will be until a year after your last purchase. The only exception is if you purchased from a registrar who allows refunds (most don't.)

You may want to sure that you're not going to automatically renew the old domain (make sure the box is un-ticked instead of ticked).  

In the meantime, though, your options for the old custom domain include:

• Do nothing

Anyone who goes to it will just get a 404 / site not found error.

• Use a blog to tell people about the redirect:

Create a new blog that just has one post explaining where your old blog has gone.

Set up this new blog to use the old custom domain from Settings > Publishing > Switch to Custom Domain > Switch to Advanced Settings.

I'm 99% certain that you don't need to worry about the set-up instructions, because they will have been done the first time around.

• Use a domain re-direct

This means that anyone who goes to your old domain (either directly or by selecting it from Google search results) is automatically taken to your new domain.

There is a way to do it from Blogger - but it's a hack that tends to get your blog detected as spam.

The better way is to set up a re-direct with the domain registrar (ie whichever of GoDaddy and eNom the old domain was purchased through).  The directions for doing it are different for every domain registrar, so you need to read their help instuctions.  You do need to get into the domain control panel to get the access details.  If you don't have the details (ie domain administrator ID and password) for doing that, try using this help-process choosing:
- I never created an administrator account, then
- I signed up at Google.com/a and purchased a domain name at the same time

If you need help, check the support forums (etc) provided by the relevant domain registrar.

• Use the old domain for something else

Previously this could include AdSense for parked domains (if you're already an AdSense publisher) - but that option has now been turned off>   So you may want to investigate other , or something totally different - see the second part of using a custom domain for something other than a Blogspot blog for help with this.

You may even want to sell the old domain to someone else, in which case you'll need to learn about the domain transfer process.

Related Articles: 

Using a custom domain for something other than a Blogspot blog

AdSense for parked domains

Setting up the domain administrator for your domain

Automatically renewing your custom domain

Understanding Google accounts

Transferring ownership of your blog to another Google account

Blogger and other Google products - an overview

Setting up AdSense for parked domains

This article is no longer current.   It was about setting up AdSense on a domain that you own, but are not using.

However this feature of AdSense was withdrawn in early 2012, so the feature is no longer available.

The information below was correct until then, but has not been update since.

What is AdSense for Domains

Sometimes, you may own a domain, but not actually want to use it for a blog-site as yet.  I'm currently working on one new blog for which I found a very appropriate, and available URL.   It won't be ready to be public for a month or more, but I've purchased the domain-name now so that someone else doesn't take it:  A lot of the design etc is based around the quirky name, and a lot of work would need to be re-done if I waited and tehn couldn't get the site-name that I want.

Or you may find you own a domain-name that doesn't actually work for what you wanted it to:  either your don't want to keep the site on-line, or people don't like the domain name.  But you still own it until the current paid period runs out.   (Don't forget to disable auto-renewal in this case.)   

An option that you have is to show paid advertisements on the domain in the meantime.   This may earn some advertising revenue - and (for domains-in-waiting) it gives an insight into the number of "natural" visitors that a domain gets without any promotion or links.  These visitors can some either through people guessing the URL, or following broken hyperlinks set up when the URL was used for something else.

If you're already signed up to be an AdSense publisher, then AdSense for Domain is an easy choice for putting advertising onto domain like this.

The Rules:

You need to check the terms and conditions:   here are the full T&C's for AdSense for Domains.

As always with AdSense, clicking your own ads isn't allowed.

But there are some extra conditions too:

You can't use it with domain URLS that are adult/sexual, promote hate, are overly rude, relate to weapons, alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, about other illegal things or sensitive current events, or which infringe trademarks (even if it's just with apparent typos).

Also, with AdSense for Domains, you're not allowed to promote the domain.   So when you're ready to start publicizing the URL on other websites, you need to take AdSense for Domains off it.   I'd assume that this is true even if the publicity clearly says "available next week" or similar.  

These are just some of the rules - make sure you read the full details before you get started.

Setting up AdSense for Domains:

(These instructions are based on the new - Nov 2010 - AdSense interface.  The process is very similar in the old menus, although the command names and positions may be slightly different.)

If necessary, release your custom domain from being used for a blog.

Log into AdSense with your main account.  
(For me, this is not always the one that purchased the domain, but it is always the one that paid for it via Google Checkout.   There may be some complications later on if your Google account that has AdSense wasn't the same one that paid for the domain.)

Go into the My Ads tab

Choose Domains from the left-hand menu.

Click the New Hosted Domain button, which is at the top of the list of domains.

Enter the name(s) of the domain(s) that you want to set up AdSense for Domains for  (or upload a comma-separated-values file listing them, if there are a lot).
Use the naked format, eg your-domain.com, not www.your-domain.com

Choose the language that most sense for people who might visit this domain.   (eg the domain I've parked at the moment is named with a word from the English language, so I've chosen English).

Click the Add Domains button

The system shows a pop-up box, either telling you that the domain was successfully added, or that there is a problem you need to resolve.

There will also be a message that "To begin serving ads, you must now point your domains to our servers. Follow the Domain Setup Guide to complete the setup process for each hosted domain that you have added."

If you bought your domain through Blogger (and probably through other Google products, eg Sites as well) can ignore this message to start with and close the window.

But if you purchased the domain another way (including directly from GoDaddy or eNom), you  need to read the Domain Setup Guide, and take whatever actions are recommended.

• Clicking the View the Domain Setup Guide opens it in an new window/tab (depending on your browser).   --- except that right now, it shows a message saying "We are sorry but the information that you have requested cannot be found. Please try searching or browsing the help centre".   If you get this, just search for the Domain Setup Guide using the search field on the screen.

Closing the pop-up takes you back to the My Ads > Domains listing.   There will be a new entry on the list, with status "DNS verification pending".

Under the domain-name, there are links for Details (which shows you what the DNS entries need to be), and Request verification.

After you have set up the correct DNS entries with your domain registrar  (or immediately, if you purchased via Blogger et al), click on the Request Verification link.   This sends a message to AdSense/Google, asking them to check that your domain setup is correct.

Wait:  there will be a delay (perhaps 2-3 days), while Google check that it is valid for you to display ads on this domain (remember those rules from the Terms and Conditions section - it seems that they do check), and that your DNS settings are correct.

If a problem is found, this screen will show a message about this, and tell you how to resolve it.

And once AdSense for Domains is enabled, the status changes to Active.

Note:  I said above that if you purchased the domain via Google, you don't actually need to do any further setup.  This has been true for three of the four parked URLs that I've put AdSense-for-Domains onto.   For the most recent one, I found that Google didn't automatically put the right value into the CNAME.  I'm not sure if this was because I hadn't set up a domain administrator account when I tried to enable AdSense for Domains, or for some other reason.   Either way, I had to go into the Google Apps control panel for the domain (logged in as the domain administrator), get the details for accessing the domain registrar (in this case GoDaddy), and then go in to the registrar control panel and edit the CNAME record to include my AdSense ID.   This wasn't actually hard (Google and GoDaddy's instructions were good) but it may seem a little frightening if it's not the sort of thing you're used to doing.   

Stay calm, read the error messages carefully, work slowly and if you get stuck pop into the Blogger (if you purchased the domain that way) or AdSense help forums.

Testing and customizing AdSense for Domains:

Once the status is Active, test your domain by viewing it in your browser:  it should display AdSense ads.   (Remember not to click any!)

Back in the AdSense > AdSense Setup > AdSense for Domains tab, you can customise the look of the screen by selecting the domain (use the check-box to the left of the name), and choosing Actions > Edit from the menu items just above the domain list.   This lets you:

• Put the domain into a custom channel (for tracking performance)
• Edit the keywords that are used to help choose what advertisements to show
• Edit the colour-scheme of the displayed ads.

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Related Articles:

Auto-renewing custom domains

Setting up an administrator account for your custom domain

Using a custom domain for something other than your blog

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

AdSense and AdWords - understanding the difference

Deleting Blogs and Blog-posts

Transferring Blog Ownership.