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(Note): This post has been replaced by (and substantially rewritten, to reflect major changes to the custom domain product) The Real Blogger Status: Schizophrenia and Custom Domain URLs.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.

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