New Blogger: My 6 Month Evaluation

I posted my first article in this blog, my first New Blogger (then "Beta" Blogger) blog, on August 16, 2006. This is my 6 month evaluation of New Blogger (OK, I took a week + to get around to it).

My 3 week evaluation of Beta Blogger covered most of the exciting new features. Since then, the most significant feature added was Google Custom Domains, which lets you have a blog addressed with a non "xxx.blogspot.com" address, but with all of the shiny features of New Blogger.

One major limitation of New Blogger, and one that badly needs to be changed, is that ownership of any blog will always be based on the account that was used when the account owning the blog was migrated. If you haven't migrated yet, be aware of this limitation!

The bottom line? If you haven't migrated yet, and you have the opportunity, do so now. If it's still optional for you (it's not optional for a lot of people), plan the migration, and do it soon.

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Deleting Your Blog? Do It Right!

As I've said before, if you want to get rid of your blog, make it into a stub first. Once the search engines update their databases with the stub, then delete the stub.

If you don't, you could end up like Sir Richard Francis Burton

I have deleted the blog... at the painel configurations I selected
to exclude the blog...

Then, later I tried to enter at the site only for making sure.. but it
is still there!

In an earlier thread, Blogger Employee tells us

... there's a small bug in the old version of Blogger, which sometimes causes a hiccup in fully deleting an old blog.

The solution, in another case, is monolithic, starting with the usual observance

... we can't do anything w/o your blog's URL :)

and after the URL is provided, continuing (concluding?) with

Don't worry though, the content no longer appears online.

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Publishing Externally? Republish To Blog*Spot Before Publishing To A Custom Domain

If you're currently publishing your blog externally, because you want to use a non-Blog*Spot address, you may have looked at your friends who are now publishing to a Google Custom Domain, and envied all of the shiny features in New Blogger that they can now use.

(Note): This post has been migrated to (and improved in) The Real Blogger Status: Publishing Externally? Republish To Blog*Spot Before Publishing To A Custom Domain.

Now publishing externally was how you got to use a non-Blog*Spot address for your blog, under Old Blogger. But with New Blogger, and the HTML served dynamically, blogs published externally couldn't use all of the features. So Blogger developed Custom Domains, where the blogs could be published to the Google servers (enabling dynamic HTML), and use externally hosted DNS to point a non-Blogger domain into the Google servers (enabling non-Blog*Spot addresses).

Let's say that you have a blog, published to a section of your website, as "mydomain.com\blog".

1. Setup the rest of your website, to point to your blog as "myblog.mydomain.com".
2. As I describe in Custom Domain setup Step2, point "myblog.mydomain.com" to "ghs.google.com".
3. Republish your blog back to Blog*Spot, let's say as "myblog". Go to Settings - Publishing, select Blog*Spot Address, and provide "myblog" for the Blog*Spot Address.
4. As I describe in Custom Domain setup Step3, now publish your Blog*Spot blog "myblog" to "myblog.mydomain.com", on Google servers.

If you only have your blog, and nothing else, the task is a bit simpler.

1. Republish your blog back to Blog*Spot, let's say as "myblog". Go to Settings - Publishing, select Blog*Spot Address, and provide "myblog" for the Blog*Spot Address.
2. As I describe in Custom Domain setup Step3, now publish your Blog*Spot blog "myblog" to "myblog.mydomain.com", on Google servers.

The key step here is that your blog has to be hosted on Blog*Spot, before a Custom Domain forwarding can be successfully setup. Your Blog*Spot URL ("xxxxxxx.blogspot.com") will forward, automatically, to your custom domain. This saves those with an established blog at "xxxxxxx.blogspot.com" from losing that address to sploggers.

Complicated? Not really. Just take it one step at a time. Just pray that you don't get the old monolithic error

Another blog is already hosted at this address.

>> Forum thread links: bX-*00028

>> Copy this tag: bX-*00028

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Google Custom Domain - The DNS Server Definition

Of the confusion surrounding definition of Google Custom Domains in DNS, second only to the confusion about the DNS Referral definition, is the DNS Server definition.

(Note): This post has been migrated to (and improved in) The Real Blogger Status: The Google Custom Domain Setup - The DNS Server Definition.

Google does not provide the name servers needed for Google Custom Domains to work - the name servers must be provided by your registrar. The name servers are indicated by "NS" records, pointing to 2 - 8 servers owned by the registrar. You do not change the "NS" records.

The "NS" records point to the DNS servers provided by your DNS hosting company. You pay for the DNS hosting service, and the DNS hosting company sets up the "NS" records, on your behalf.

The name servers, provided by your registrar, are where the domain definition records, such as "A" (Address), "CNAME" (Canonical Name), and "MX" (Mail Exchange), among others, are stored. You have to provide a "CNAME" record on those servers, with that "CNAME" record pointing to "ghs.google.com", for your blog to be referenced as part of a Google Custom Domain.

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A Tale Of Two Domains

Blogger rolls on, and upgrades their product in silence. Here we see another example of that process.

We're going to examine two blogs - MartinezUMC and ToaCx4. We'll start with excerpts from the ever useful DNS Report, provided (free) by DNS Stuff.


martinezumc .org


The relevant portion of the DNS Report for the domain for my church blog, previously examined in my Case Study #2.




toacx4 .info


The relevant portion of the DNS Report for the domain for JaceMan's blog "toacx4".




Next, the ever available "ping" command, to test name resolution.

C:\>ping martinezumc.org

Pinging ghs.l.google.com [64.233.179.121] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=94ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.179.121: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=244

Ping statistics for 64.233.179.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 92ms, Maximum = 94ms, Average = 92ms

C:\>ping www.martinezumc.org

Pinging ghs.l.google.com [66.249.81.121] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=94ms TTL=244
Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=244
Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=244
Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=244

Ping statistics for 66.249.81.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 92ms, Maximum = 94ms, Average = 93ms

C:\>ping toacx4.info
Ping request could not find host toacx4.info. Please check the name and try again.

C:\>ping www.toacx4.info

Pinging ghs.l.google.com [66.249.81.121] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=244
Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=244
Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=106ms TTL=244
Reply from 66.249.81.121: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=244

Ping statistics for 66.249.81.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 92ms, Maximum = 106ms, Average = 96ms

Finally, we'll load all 4 aliases for each blog.

We see a major difference in functionality here. The first, "martinezumc.org", loads its custom website properly for the root only, but not for "www.martinezumc.org". The second, "toacx4.info", loads the website properly for both the root and "www.toacx4.info".


martinezumc .blogspot .com


http://martinezumc.blogspot.com/, which redirects to http://martinezumc.org/




www .martinezumc .blogspot .com


http://www.martinezumc.blogspot.com/




martinezumc .org


http://martinezumc.org/




www .martinezumc .org


http://www.martinezumc.org/ is a 404 at Blogger




toacx4 .blogspot .com


http://toacx4.blogspot.com/, which redirects to http://www.toacx4.info/




www .toacx4 .blogspot .com


http://www.toacx4.blogspot.com/




toacx4 .info


http://toacx4.info/, which redirects to http://www.toacx4.info/




www .toacx4 .info


http://www.toacx4.info/



So why did I refer to The Silence, here? Because less than a week ago, we were told that .info TLDs cannot be used with Custom Domains.

(Edit 2/9 21:00): In custom domain with 1 & 1 hosting, we see the same situation with Cool Looking Stuff as with Martinez UMC.

• http://cool-looking-stuff.blogspot.com/
• http://www.cool-looking-stuff.blogspot.com/
• http://cool-looking-stuff.com/
• http://www.cool-looking-stuff.com/
• DNS Report for cool-looking-stuff.com

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Google Custom Domain - The DNS Referral

Of all of the instructions in the process of setting up a Google Custom Domain for your Blogger blog, none seems to generate so much confusion as setting up the DNS Referral. The instruction itself is so simple,

Add a "CNAME" record. Point "www.yourdomain.com" to "ghs.google.com". And leave the "NS" records to be maintained by your DNS provider.

(Note): This post has been migrated to The Real Blogger Status: The Google Custom Domain Setup - The DNS Referral.

But why a "CNAME" record? And why "ghs.google.com"?

• The host "ghs.google.com" is a load balancing server array. When the reader's DNS client asks for the address of "ghs.google.com", it gets the address of whatever server is available right now.
• In order for you to refer DNS traffic for "yourdomain.com" to "ghs.google.com", rather than to "64.233.179.121" (among many possibilities), you have to use a "CNAME" record. An Address ("A") record will only point to an IP address; to point to a host name you must use a Canonical Name ("CNAME") record.

When a reader of your blog points his browser in your direction, he is referred to "ghs.google.com".

The host "ghs.google.com" then provides a specific IP address, pointing to the single server that will be used to serve your blog to this reader. Another reader for your blog will be accessing it thru a different IP address, using another server. This is called "load balancing". If one readers accesses your blog thru server "D", another reader may access it thru server "F", and a third thru server "G". If server "B" is down, "ghs.google.com" won't offer it for referral. Other readers of other blogs may be using servers "A", "C", and "E" at the same time.

Google provides a load balancing server array, to give your readers the best possible experience. Use the array, not a single server, nor a URL referral. Or prepare for complaints

Gee, your blog performance sucks.

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Custom Domains And URL Forwarding - A Bad Idea

If you're trying to get your Custom Domain setup to work, and are frustrated (as I am) by the fact that you can't get both "www.yourdomain.com" and "yourdomain.com" to forward properly, you may have complained to your DNS provider, suspecting that the problem is one which they must resolve.

And in some cases, your DNS provider may not know how to setup a "CNAME" record. Some providers only use "A" records.

Some DNS providers will convince you to use URL forwarding, where your domain is redirected to the DNS providers servers. They set their servers to simply load any portion of the desired website ("www.yourdomain.com" or "yourdomain.com") from your Blog*Spot website ("yourblog.blogspot.com").

This will indeed load the content, as desired. There are several downsides to this "solution", though.

• Your DNS provider may have to set this up in their servers, it's possibly not a DNS setting that you can make.
• As the reader views your redirected blog, the content of the address bar in the browser will constantly indicate "www.yourdomain.com" or "yourdomain.com", with no detail about the actual URL being viewed.
• We're unsure about how well search engine spiders, and other robotic visitors, will react to URL forwarding.
• URL forwarding bypasses the load balancing provided by "ghs.google.com", and this is bad for everybody.

Blogger has admitted that Custom Domains needs work. Let's wait for them to figure out how it should be setup, at their end. Try and avoid using URL Forwarding, unless you are really desperate.

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