Welcome to The Real Blogger Status - Beta. Please note the warnings (as of 6/13: 0 active), and the alerts (as of 1/10/2007: 5 active).

Please be aware of the naming variances in this blog. You will find various references to "Classic" / "Old Template 2006" Blogger, and to "Beta" / "New Template 2006" Blogger.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Your Blog, And Its Dual Personality

When I write a blog post, like this one, Your Blog, And Its Dual Personality, it has a known URL - http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html
. It also has a second URL - http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html
. Try the two links, and see for yourself.

(Note): This post has been replaced by (and substantially rewritten, to reflect major changes to the custom domain product) The Real Blogger Status: Schizophrenia and Custom Domain URLs. You may also find insight in The Real Blogger Status: Your Browser Cache, and Web Sites With Dual Addresses

That's real, but it's not terribly useful. I advertise this post as http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html
, not as http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html
, intentionally. This blog is "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com" - "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com" is not necessary.

But what if this blog was "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com"? That would make this post http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html
. If properly setup, it should also be addressed as http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html
.
(Note): Since I haven't setup a domain "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com", don't expect to click on any of the latter links, and get anything useful. Sorry.

The point here is that "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" and "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" should be synonymous - for a domain that only contains a blog. For other domains, this may vary.

For many domains, the "www" prefix will be synonymous with the root - but not for Google Custom Domains.


  1. I pay for the DNS listing, which tells your computer where my blog is.
  2. I setup a DNS entry, pointing "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to "ghs.google.com".
  3. I setup Blogger to publish to the custom domain.


From what I see, redirecting "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to a web site on a Google server involves two address records.

  1. A CNAME record at my DNS service, forwarding "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to "ghs.google.com".
  2. A pointer at "ghs.google.com", forwarding "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to the actual physical website.

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=55373
Google hosts lots of blogs, so we have to make sure the right one is associated with this domain.


My guess is, when I tell Blogger to publish my blog to "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com", and to host the content on their server, they do three things:
1) Create the content, with links using "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" as the base URL.
2) Copy the content to the web server, in the proper location.
3) Create a pointer, on "ghs.google.com", indicating where the content was copied.

The result is that I have a pointer indicating the location of "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com". I'd bet that also setting up a pointer for "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com", indicating the same location, was a detail that Blogger overlooked.

The bottom line? I can setup a pair of CNAME records in my DNS service, both pointing to "ghs.google.com" - "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" and "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com". But, without a pointer on "ghs.google.com", indicating the server where "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" is located, I'm out of luck for addressing this post as http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html
.

(Edit 1/15): Using "martinezumc.org" as a publishing target for "martinezumc.blogspot.com", I see complete agreement with the above.

>> Top

11 comments:

Robert P said...

Hi,
Go Daddy wants me to have the host name and an IP address. How do I figure out the IP address?
Thanks,
Robert

Nitecruzr said...

Robert,

Blogger (Google) provides a named server ("ghs.google.com"), and you're supposed to use a CNAME to refer to it. Suspicions are that "ghs.google.com" is a load balancing DNS server, that refers to the actual server by a varying IP address.

In short, all that they provide is the host name "ghs.google.com". That's resolved dynamically, when the browser loads the web page.

Anonymous said...

This means we can only have either www. or http://
That's shame ... google should solve this problem otherwise what the use of spending money on custom domain.

Ethan Cairns said...

Amen brother!

Glad to see someone addressing this issue clearly without getting mixed up with all the other problems with using custom domain names. I've submitted a bug report - others should do the same so this issue shows up on the radar at Blogger. seems like it should be a no-brainer for them to implement once they realize people's frustration.

Madeline said...

Thank you, Chuck! I thought I had done something wrong.

Another odd thing that happened - when I was using a custom domain for a couple days, technorati started counting links from my www address to my no www address. It's like they thought they were two different sites.

Where is the best place for me to keep an eye out on whether this is fixed? Here or on some google site?

Thanks again, Chuck.

☮alxblck said...

Thanks Chuck. I've had the same problem and am now annoyed. despite the fact that I shelled out the cash for the custom domain, all links from before the switch still contain "blogspot" in the address. ugh.

Nitecruzr said...

Alex,

What links "from before the switch", that still contain "blogspot", are you referring to? External links to the blog? Or links within the blog?

Leave a URL, please, so we can see the problem. Or describe the problem better.

DeeK™ said...

Quoting
-------------------------------------
4 DB said...

This means we can only have either www. or http://
That's shame ... google should solve this problem otherwise what the use of spending money on custom domain.
1/15/2007 8:47 AM
-------------------------------------

The problem has not been fixed am i right ?
I recently signed up for a custom domain and have been facing these problems too.

Nitecruzr said...

Deek,

The problem is that Blogger doesn't see a problem. As a custom domain, your blog will respond to (be accessible from) only what URL that you publish to. No more.

If you publish to mycustomdomain.com, that's the address your readers will see your blog on.

If you publish to blog.mycustomdomain.com, that's the address your readers will see your blog on.

If you publish to www.mycustomdomain.com, that's the address your readers will see your blog on.

The fact that they have been providing www.myblog.blogspot.com as an alias to myblog.blogspot.com, in natively published blogs, does not constitute a constraining precedent to them.

I, and the other Blog*Stars in the forum, will supposedly have some improved form of communication with Blogger, some time in the future. You can bet that's one of the first questions that I intend to ask, when I get the chance.

And, of course, everybody else needs to ask the question too! If you don't ask, it may not get answered.

bfelice said...

I can't resolve this either. GoDaddy's proprietary interface won't allow a *.mydomain.com in CNAME and wants the AName to point to the google IP. Google not interested in routing through IP and assumes, well, silly, just set up the second CName the right way. My wikifarm has the same instructions as google. godaddy has the same structured dns interface as my isp. Bleah.

Nitecruzr said...

Beth,

I did it.
http://martinezumc.org/

I used GoDaddy for my DNS Host, too.

You can, too. GoDaddy has a good help department. Give them the first URL, and tell them that you want the same. It can be done.