Do you have a blog on Blogger.com? Want to host it on your own domain? Its fairly easy, just follow these simple steps and you can have your blog hosted on your custom domain almost immediately. Its always better to host a blog on a custom domain instead of a “blogname.blogspot.com”. Even better if in case you plan to monetize your blog, a custom domain name is very much needed for SEO and increasing traffic to your blog.
To better understand how a custom domain can help you get more traffic, increase your blog’s search engine ranking read this. Now that you know the importance of having your own domain name, how do you go about getting one?
1. Decide on a domain name.
Choose the domain name you want for your blog or site very carefully. Its always better to choose a domain name depending on your content of your blog/site i.e. what the blog/site is going to be about? Also, the most common mistake that people tend to make while choosing a domain name is – choosing an already trademarked name. The domain name you choose may have been registered before, check it with a Whois.net. There is also a very good probability that a domain(if it had been registered earlier)may have been baned by advertising sites like adsense. This also need to be checked.
Also, I strongly suggest you google the name before selecting it. A short, easy to remember name which is somewhat relevant to your content will be ideal.
2. Where do you buy the domain from?
I bought this domain from Indialinks.com and I must say I’m not very happy with them. Some domain registrars may charge you less but refrain from providing full DNS control. After talking to a few people(who own many domains) about their experience, and reading up about registrars, I would strongly suggest GoDaddy.com and Namecheap.com.
3. Host your blog on your custom domain.
This is the easiest part. After the domain has been bought you need to add a CNAME record for your domain point to ghs.google.com. To know how a CNAME record can be created, go here. It should be noted that any changes made to the DNS settings/records will take some time to reflect. It may take a few hours to 4 hours. After adding the CNAME record, login to your blogger account. Go to Settings>>Publishing and choose “custom domain”. Since you have already bought a domain name, go to Advanced Settings and enter your domain name. Thats it. Now your blog is hosted on your custom domain.
When you host an existing blogger blog on your custom domain, the incoming visitors will be automatically redirected to your new address. But any search engine ranking(pagerank, etc) will be lost.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a really helpful post you have here. A step by step approach to what most people think is rocket science. A classic example of the application of the KISS principle.
@Soraisham Okendro: Glad to know you found the post helpful.
Very nice points you have discussed in your article. Thanks for sharing.