Custom Domain Names Hosted By Blogger

Up to now, if you wanted a blog (web site) named myblog, you had 2 choices.

1. Setup myblog.blogspot.com, hosted by Blog*Spot, and with all of the shiny features of (now) New Blogger.
2. Setup myblog.com (myblog.org, ...), hosted by a host of your choice (and extra cost in most cases), but with less features than a Blog*Spot hosted blog.

Note: This post has been migrated (and significantly enhanced) as The Real Blogger Status: Custom Domain Names Hosted By Blogger.

Now, there is a third choice. Setup myblog.com (myblog.org, ...), hosted by Blog*Spot.

1. You pay for the DNS listing, which tells your reader's computers where your blog is.
2. You setup a DNS entry, pointing "myblog.com" to "ghs.google.com".
3. You setup Blogger to publish to the custom domain.

(Note): Set the domain up carefully.

This solution has its good, and its bad, points.

• The Good:
  • Save money. No need for an extra cost hosting service.
  • All of the shiny features of New Blogger.
  • None of the unstable publishing problems, reported of late.
  • Your current Blog*Spot address will continue to work, and to forward to your new, custom domain.
  • No more abandoned Blog*Spot address, and no more subsequent splog hijackings.
• The Bad:
  • If you opted for external publishing to get away from Blog*Spot hosting, this isn't for you.
  • If your domain contains more than a blog - ie maybe a chat room or FTP server, this may be a problem. You have two possibilities here.
    • Have two named domains - one inside Blog*Spot, the other outside, and links between the two.
    • Setup a subdomain DNS record, pointing to "ghs.google.com". Make sure that all of the links between the website and the blog are absolute, ie "http://myblog.mydomain.com", rather than "/blog".

(Note 1/16): There's a lot of theory here. See Google Custom Domain - Case Study #1 for an actual exploration of the facts. And see Setting Up A Custom Domain? Here's Advice, for a review of the essential steps that you must follow.

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Another Cookie Issue

Previously, we discovered a possible problem with Blogger and third party cookies. That could, potentially, affect all Bloggers, but only temporarily. As everybody adjusts to New Blogger, so should their computers, and the problems should go away.

But login problems, frequently looking like they might involve cookies, surface daily. New Blogger was publicised on 12/19, and two weeks later, the login problems don't seem to be going away all that quickly.

Maybe there's another problem, and maybe it involves the wording in instructions about permitting cookies.

Jordan, in login trouble - wont remember me, provides a long forgotten link to Known Issues for the New Blogger: The “Remember Me” login option will not work, where we are advised, when configuring Internet Explorer, to

...add google.com to the list of allowed sites under Internet Options > Privacy.

I wonder how many folks added "www.blogger.com", rather than "blogger.com", based upon the Firefox and Internet Explorer wizards

Type the exact address of the website...

I know that I become confused by that instruction.

Now, the article The “Remember Me” login option will not work specifically mentions Internet Explorer V6 as a problem, and Firefox is implied to be free from this problem. The date of that article is 9/5/2006. Firefox V2, and Internet Explorer V7, came out almost 2 months later.

FF V1.5 and IE V6, by and large, used "permit by default, deny on demand" security strategies. FF V2 and IE V7, on the other hand, use "deny by default, permit on demand" strategies, and are more likely to present a problem with incorrectly permitted cookies.

In short, for both Firefox and Internet Explorer, check your Cookies permissions. Make sure that you are allowing "blogger.com", rather than "www.blogger.com", to add cookies to your computer.

For more insight into the cookie issue, see Roberto's Report: Another Cookie, anyone?.

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Publicising Your New Blogger Blog

Publicising your blog, in general, means submitting it to the search engines. There are some significant differences between Old Template and New Template (Layouts) Blogger blogs.

Get Indexed By The Search Engines
As with an old template blog, there are 3 default Blogger values, which describe your blog to any search engine spider.

• $BlogPageTitle$
• $BlogMetaData$
• $BlogTitle$

In a new template blog, they're found in roughly the same place, but coded differently.

• <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
• <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
  <b:skin><![CDATA[/*
• <div id='header-wrapper'>
  <b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'>
  <b:widget id='HTML4' locked='false' title='' type='HTML'/>
  </b:section>
  </div>

What you'll end up with, at the top of the blog, will be roughly similar.

    <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
    <meta content='The Real Blogger Status: What Blogger
 Won"t Tell You' name='description'/>
    <meta content='Blogger, Blogspot, blogger.com,
 blogspot.com, outage, maintenance, inconvenience...
 Permission Denied,' name='keywords'/>
    <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
    <b:skin><![CDATA[/*

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Third Party Cookies Used To Migrate From Beta Blogger To New Blogger?

Complaints in the Blogger help forums about "Blogger won't remember me" are becoming pretty common. My general advice is to clear cache and cookies, and start over.

Maybe we're seeing a way out of the fog.

Joel, aka Far Outliers in Clicking "Remember Me" is Useless, may have found a clue.

At work, I was getting redirected successfully, but at home I wasn't--that is, until right now, when I unchecked the box in Firefox that allows 3rd-party cookies.

It makes sense that third party cookies would be part of a migration.

Cookies created by one server ("beta.blogger.com"), and read by another ("www2.blogger.com") might look like a third party relationship, to the browser.

Now, it's up for someone to verify this. If you're blocking third party cookies, and you haven't yet successfully gotten Blogger to recognise your login state from browser session to browser session, check your third party cookies filtering in your browser.

And if you find a setting that, when corrected lets you login properly, let us know.

For more insight into the cookie issue, see Roberto's Report: Another Cookie, anyone?.

(Edit 1/3): Besides the third party cookies problem, there's an interesting possibility to explain first party cookies, and how they could present a problem in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

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Still Waiting?

You can only migrate your Blogger account, and Old Template blogs, to a Google account and New Template (Layout) blogs, when you receive the invitation. And even if you see the invitation today, that's not to guarantee that you will see it tomorrow.

From discussions in the forums, it appears that the secret ceremonies continue.

• How to remove Google account from Blogger account?
  
• Switching from old blogger to new
  
• Stuck between the New and Old Blogger
  
• Getting multiple blogs under one Google account
  

And, even if you do get the tap on the shoulder, and it lasts during a convenient time for you, your blog(s) might take more than a few minutes to migrate.

• Help required for accessing my blog
  

>> Forum thread links: bX-*00031

>> Copy this tag: bX-*00031