Surviving the Blogging Sandbox

How to Shift to Blogger's Custom Domain
Sunday, June 22, 2008

After learning how to verify or authenticate one's blog, there are still a number of little things that a newbie blogger needs to know and do for his/her blog. But I have decided to defer talking about these things for now because I can see from the Official Blogger Help Group site that, despite the numerous explanations already published there, one of the most complained-about topic remains to be how to successfully shift from a Blogspot blog (a subdomain) to a "custom domain" (or a URL/address owned by the blogger). This is my take on the "custom domain" issue, based on my own experience. Before I proceed, however, here are a few clarificatory words.

First, this post is limited in its application to the Blogger platform.

Second, although I could have acquired my domain name thru Blogger and registered it through a Google partner, I have decided to source it from GoDaddy.com after some preliminary Web research. As such, the step-by-step procedures that are discussed here pertain only to domains parked with GoDaddy.com. Having had no benefit of actual experience with domain names parked with other hosts, I can't tell how different or similar the procedures are when one shifts from Blogspot to a custom domain.

Third, what most step-by-step procedures about shifting to a custom domain lacks is a simplified overview on what the whole exercise is trying to achieve. This is superfluous for a techie, but quite basic to a non-techie who is trying to do this himself for the first time. I wish somebody taught me this on my first attempt. Anyway...

Blogger's "custom domain" feature is like having your cake and eating it, too--a normally impossible feat in the real world, but only made possible by Google. With this Blogger feature, you can enjoy the respectability of blogging from your own URL or personal blog address without the attendant monthly costs of a hosted blog. This magic is achieved by having a domain "parked" with GoDaddy.com (free of cost if you bought it from them) and "pointing" (take note: I didn't say "forwarding", because that's a different matter altogether in the Internet world) that domain or address to a Blogger/Google server, which is your "host". Thus, all the procedures below are intended to "point" your "parked" domain to your cost-free "host." On that note, here we go:

1. Login to your GoDaddy account:

2. Click on the My Account link:

3. Click on Manage Domains to open the Domain Control Center:

4. In your list of domain names (assuming you have more than one parked in GoDaddy), click on the domain you wish to substitute (as "Custom Domain") for your present Blog*spot sub-domain:

5. Click on the Total DNS Control and MX Records link, located just under Nameservers in the mid-portion of your screen:

DNS stands for "Domain Name System", a system which allows the translation of a human-readable hostname (ex: Typhoon.com) into an IP (short for "Internet Protocol") address of the form 208.77.188.166, to enable the delivery of digital data over networking equipment.

An MX or "Mail Exchange" record, on the other hand, is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS). Each MX record contains a "priority" and a "host" name, so that the collection of MX records for a given domain name point to the servers that should receive e-mail for that domain, and their priority relative to each other.

6. Set up a CNAME referral for the alias www by clicking on Add New CNAME Record (found at the right portion of your screen, below Add New A Record):

CNAME is short for "canonical name" record. It indicates the true, or canonical, host name of a computer that its aliases are associated with. A machine or a computer can have an unlimited number of CNAME aliases, but a separate CNAME record must be in the database for each alias.

6. Fill up the CNAME (Alias) form:

Before you fill up that form, let me just digress a little bit to the concept of "domain name," which most tutorials on custom domain presume you know. According to Google Apps: Domain names are easy-to-remember names (URLs and email addresses) that are associated with one or more IP addresses. Since a web page is defined by its URL, the page can move to a different IP address without affecting visitors. If we have "www.typhoon.com" as the domain name, "com" is called the top-level domain, "typhoon" is the second-level domain, while "www" is the subdomain, third-level domain, alias or CNAME.

Having said that, type "www" on the space provided for "Enter an Alias Name" and "ghs.google.com" on the space provided for "Points to Host Name," then set the "TTL" using the dropdown box. I don't know with you, but I kept the "TTL" at the default setting of 1 hour, which means that's the time increment for which the server should cache the information. Once you're done with the form, click OK. (In case the "www" alias is rejected, if you already have several domain names under the same GoDaddy account--like what happened to me recently--use your second-level domain in place of "www", e.g., "typhoon.com" in the above example)

7. After successfully completing the CNAME referral process, you can now delete the A-Record by clicking the highlighted button shown below, before logging out of GoDaddy:

8. It's time now to set up Custom Domain by logging-in to your Blogger blog , going to the Settings tab and clicking the Publishing link:

9. Click the Advanced Settings link in the Custom Domain Page, since you already own a domain parked with GoDaddy:

10. Type your Custom Domain (which is parked with GoDaddy and by now pointed to Google's server) on the space indicated, then click Save Settings, as shown below:

11. After saving your Custom Domain successfully, check the Redirect box (which I highlighted), then click Save Settings:

Bloggers who shift to Custom Domain very early on, when they still have not published much, could practically confirm right away if they did the whole process correctly by clicking on the View Blog link, and checking their Browser's address box. The address displayed should correspond to the Custom Domain. For older blogs with plenty of published posts, however, it may take longer. According to Google Apps, it could take as much as 48 hours for the Custom Domain to substitute for the Blogspot subdomain.

Posted byS@RZI at 9:29 PM 0 comments

Labels: Alias, Blogger Help Group, blogging, BlogSpot subdomain, CNAME, custom domain, DNS, ghs.google.com, GoDaddy, Google Apps, MX control, second-level domain, third-level domain, top-level domain

How to "Authenticate" Your Blog Using Yahoo Site Explorer
Monday, June 9, 2008

My last post was meant to help you gain more visibility on Google's search engine. Yahoo has its own search engine, so you must be asking how you can similarly improve your chances of getting included in Yahoo! search results.

If you want guaranteed inclusion in all Yahoo! search results, that is possible but it would come at a certain price. It is called a "Sponsored Search," which is keyword- and click-driven (meaning you pay only when your ad is clicked in search results—not every time it is displayed). If you're a novice, hobbyist blogger like me, why spend at all?

Fortunately, it is possible to have your cake and eat it too at Yahoo! You see, Yahoo! has its own blog "authentication" procedures, using Yahoo! Site Explorer. To use Site Explorer, however, you need to create first your Yahoo account, if you don't have one yet. It's free anyway, so that should not be a problem. Once you have a Yahoo account, follow these procedures:

1. Login to Yahoo! Site Explorer.

2. Input your blog's address or URL in the indicated box, then click the Add My Site button:

3. Once your blog gets added to the list, click the Manage button:

4. Input your blog's Feed address or URL in the indicated box. If yours is a Blogger or Blogspot blog, simply type "Atom.XML" on the box provided, because that's the default Feed address of all Blogger/Blogspot blogs. Afterwards, click the Add Feed button:

5. Once you see your blog Feed listed, click the Authenticate button:

6. You will be presented with 2 authentication procedures as shown below. Choose Add a META Tag and copy the code provided for your blog:

7. Open a new tab in your browser so you can login to your blog, without logging out of Yahoo! Site Explorer (you need to go back after pasting the META tag to your blog template).

8. For Blogger/Blogspot blogs, login then go to your Layout Page. Click the Edit HTML link, then on the Edit Template page which contains your blog's XML coding. Locate the opening "Head" tag in the template (not very far down from the template's first line of code) then insert your META tag below the Head tag. Enclose the META tag with a forward slash (/) at the end, as highlighted in yellow below, so that you won't encounter any "parsing" problem like I did during my first-ever attempt last year (don't forget to click Save Template before logging out of your blog):

9. Go back to the Yahoo! Site Explorer tab, then click the Ready to Authenticate button. After you do, this is what you will see in a new window:

10. When you go back to your Yahoo! Site Explorer dashboard after clicking the My Site link, this is what you will see.

The "Pending" status is usually replaced with "Authenticated" after 24 hours. With your blog verified by Google and authenticated by Yahoo!, your posts should now appear in search engine results. Look, I didn't say on page 1 of the search results, did I? This is because there is more to blogging than just being "visible" to the search engines. You will find that out as you go along.

Posted byS@RZI at 2:41 PM 4 comments

Labels: authenticating blogs, Blogger template, Feed URL, Head tag, Meta tag, search engine indexing, search engine visibility, XML coding, Yahoo Site Explorer

How to "Verify" Your Blog Using Google Webmaster Tools
Saturday, May 31, 2008

"Verifying" my blog should have entered my consciousness earlier had I been eager enough to monitor my performance in the search engines or the volume of my visitor traffic. But no, I wasn't, on both counts. It was the thought of monetizing my blog which opened up my eyes to the need to "verify" my blog. When I signed up for Google AdSense (which needs a separate post), I realized it was part of the drill, so to speak.

One exasperated comment I read today in the Google Help Forum typifies the frustration of newbies, who are particularly non-techies: "I have an account with a password, why would you have to 'verify' the blog?" Good question, so if you are like this guy here's my attempt to answer that:

--Google is the top search engine on the Web, so when your blog is "verified" using the Google Webmaster Tools, you improve your site's visibility to Google.

--When your blog is more visible to Google, it gets indexed better by its search engine, so your blog's webpages are likely to be included in Google's search results when people query on topics or subjects you have blogged about.

--Since you will want to update your blog frequently with new posts, Google will be able to capture your updates very quickly, when your blog has been "verified" by Google. This means that if Google's database gets updated quickly, people who search Google will find the most current information about your blog.

Here's how to verify your blog:

1. Log-in to Google Webmaster Tools using your username and password for your Blog-spot blog. This procedure will take you to your Dashboard.

2. Enter the URL or address of your blog's homepage (e.g., http://anyblog.blogspot.com) in the box provided in your Dashboard (like the one shown below), then click Add Site.

3. After clicking Add Site, you blog will appear on your Dashboard. Click on your blog's link to go to your Overview Page . Click "Verify Your Site" as shown below:

4. In the Verify a Site Page, you will see your blog's status, quite understandably, as "NOT VERIFIED." So, you should proceed now with the verification process. There are 2 methods available, as you will find out when you click the dropdown box indicated below (with yellow arrow):

5. There are 2 verification methods available, namely: "Add a meta tag" and "Upload an HTML file." Click Add a Meta Tag. This is what you'll see upon choosing Add a meta tag:

Since this is presumably your first time to do this, you may want to click also the "Show me an example" link for you to gain some familiarity with the relative location of the tag to be pasted on your blog's template. This is what you will see:

6. Copy the whole meta tag you were given (from < to />), then open a new tab on your browser (don't logout yet from Google Webmaster since you will need to go back to complete the verification process) and login to your Blog*spot blog, proceeding to the Layout Page and clicking the Edit HTML link.

This will bring you to the Edit Template Page, which contains the XML codes for your chosen template. Locate the opening "head" tag in the template (not very far down from the template's first line of code) then insert your meta tag. Make sure to save your tag, as indicated by the numbered arrows below:

7. Go back to the Google Webmaster tab (this is why I said earlier that you shouldn't logout yet from Google Webmaster), then click "Verify." You will be instantly rewarded with this sight--success!

We are done with the verification process, but before we leave the Google Webmaster Tools site, I invite you to explore the other links shown on the left sidebar of this site. Since you are just starting with your blogging, you may not yet find immediate use for these FREE tools, but as you progress, I'm sure you will want to go back to this site to available of these functionalities.

Here's what you'll find when you click Diagnostics:

On the other hand, here's what you'll see when you click Statistics:

I have given you a flavor of what you can find in Google webmaster tools, and I guess you'll agree that we have just barely scratched the surface. Now, why don't you go ahead and do the actual exploring of this site yourself. I'm sure you will want to go back to Google Webmaster Tools again and again in the future. Good luck.