Using A Custom Domain Outside Blogger

From time to time, we see questions about using a Blogger / Google custom domain, with publishing services outside Blogger / Google.

Some Blogger blog owners want to combine their Blogger blogs, with non Blogger blogs and websites - and others want simply to move their blogging activity to non Blogger services. And a few think ahead, and wonder how adding or moving to another service will affect the ability of their existing readers to find their blog, and / or their ability to get new readers.

As with using a Blogger blog with an existing non Google domain, this is not a simple project - and to do this properly will require research - and well informed decisions. Some assistance can be provided by Blogger or in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger - and other portions of the project will require advice or instruction from the support groups for the new service.

Start by deciding how the domain is to be used, with the new website.

Consider The Options

There are several ways to add / substitute a non Blogger blog / website, in a domain purchased for use with a Blogger blog.

1. Transfer domain registration, to the registrar, as required by the new hosting service.
2. Update DNS for the domain, to use name servers, as required by the new hosting service.
3. Update DNS for the domain, to use only addresses pointing to the new hosting service.
4. Update DNS for the domain, to use additional addresses pointing to the new hosting service.

Which of these options, that you are able to use, will depend upon requirements of the new hosting service.

WordPress provides detailed instructions, in WordPress Support: Coming from Blogger?. Not all hosting services will be so helpful, however.

Retain / Transfer Existing Traffic

Options #1 - #3 will require you to start a new URL, published by the new hosting service. Blogger will not permit blogs to be used as gateways. You'll have to get your new blog / website indexed, from the bottom up - with no automatic traffic from your Blogger blog.

Any followers or readers, that are associated with your Blogger blog, will have to be redirected to your new blog / website using visual instructions - or at best a clickable link, in a stub blog. You may be able to redirect subscribers - if the new host offers a compatible newsfeed.

You probably won't be able to publish your stub Blogger blog to the domain, though - so chances are, any of these options will leave you starting over - with no instructions to your existing followers and readers, excepting what you provide before moving the domain.

Option #4 will require you to add an additional host, in the domain with your existing Blogger blog. If your new hosting service supports, you may be able to make your Blogger blog and new blog / website equal members of a domain based cluster.

For a domain cluster to be really effective, you will need to maintain both the existing Blogger blog, and the new non Blogger website as separate entities - and have unique content, regularly updated for each.

Access The Current Registrar Dashboard

Whether you transfer domain hosting, or update the domain, you will need access to the current registrar's dashboard.

• For domains purchased using Blogger / Google "Buy a domain ..." or similar services, access to the registrar's dashboard will require access to the Google Apps / Control Panel utility.
• For domains purchased directly from the registrar, access to the registrar's dashboard will require an account / password that (hopefully) was setup when the domain was purchased.

You will need access to the registrar's dashboard to obtain the EPP code, required by Option #1 - or to make changes to the domain, required by Options #2 - #4.

You May Need Google Apps Access

Most projects - but not all - which involve custom domains require Google Apps access - and establishing Google Apps access is the most common concern, when access to the registrar's dashboard is needed.

1. Get access to Google Apps.
2. That will give you access to the registrar's dashboard.
3. Retrieve the EPP code, or update the DNS addresses per instructions of the additional / new blogging host service - depending upon which Option you are taking.

In some cases, and if you are considering multiple non Google services, choice of what new service you go with may start with identifying migration / setup options provided by each different service.

Regain Followers, Readers, Subcribers, Search Engine Reputation - And Traffic

A domain moved to use outside Blogger will be similar to a new blog / website - with some characteristics of a renamed Blogger blog, and / or a newly published custom domain blog. Just as all Blogger blogs are unique, so will be any domain migration.

You may consider moving existing blog content, to the new service. This will require planning, and testing.

Both the actual movement of the content - and preventing Blogger spam classification, if you move the content - will be important.

You need to understand all of these issues, to regain traffic sources. Blog / website traffic is a complex subject.

Respect Your Existing Audience

If the question of existing / new followers, subscribers, and readers, and search engine reputation, resulting from the move, is a serious issue with you, you may want to plan your move from Blogger with great care.

You won't be able to blatantly redirect your existing readers to your new website - you will need a carefully planned dual website publishing strategy.

Start With The Support Group For The Chosen Service

If you are going to host a blog or website outside Blogger / Google, you must start with instructions from the support group for the new blog / website. DNS is a key issue, in any domain migration - whether BlogSpot to non BlogSpot, or non BlogSpot to non Google.

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Occasionally, a #Blogger blog owner decides to move their blog to a non Google website. Starting with advice in Blogger Help Forum, the owner learns that many necessary decisions, related to a hosting change, require support from the new website host.

Not every blog owner realises why setting up and publishing a Blogger blog is so simple, until they have to make decisions about hosting outside Google.

Custom Domain Migration, And Google+ Comments

With both custom domain publishing, and Google+ hosted comments, becoming more popular, it is inevitable that the two subjects would interact.

One key difference between Blogger hosted comments, and Google+ hosted comments, is how they associate with the host blog. Blogger hosted comments link to the blog - but Google+ hosted comments (aka Google+ stream posts) link to the URL.

Any time you change the URL of your blog, you will lose Google+ hosted comments - from your blog. The Google+ stream posts, however, are still out there - and they still link back to your blog.

Any existing Google+ stream posts, mentioning your blog, will link to the BlogSpot URL of your blog, after you migrate to a custom domain.

A properly executed custom domain migration will produce a BlogSpot URL redirected to the Domain URL. Any existing Google+ Stream posts will continue to link to the blog, because of the redirect.

Any existing Google+ comments, that are associated with your blog, are out there, in your readers Google+ streams.

All that you lose, with custom domain migration, is the ability to associate all of the different conversations about your blog, between the people conversing about your blog. Like URL changes in general, you lose a tiny bit of control - but you gain visibility.

When You Search For Important Email, Search Carefully

Many Blogger / Google procedures involve email communications, with you needing to read - and respond to - email from Blogger / Google.

Some email systems automatically sort incoming email, and put important (and not so important) email into different folders. Many times, email from Blogger / Google may be sorted into a folder where you would not always normally look - or may be sent to an email address that you might not think of, immediately.

It's to your personal advantage, to find any email that is being sent to you - even stuff in Bulk / Spam.

One of the best known folders, besides Inbox, where email may be found would be "Bulk" / "Spam".

"False Positive" filter effects are unavoidable.

All email systems may occasionally put important email into either "Bulk" or "Spam". Any time when you are awaiting important email from Blogger / Google, such as when you are trying to recover access to your blog, or when you make (or maybe, need to make) an important purchase, always look in both the "Inbox" and "Bulk" / "Spam" folders.

If your email system provides an "Incoming" mail log, it's never a bad idea to scan the log, periodically.

Consider all possible email accounts that you might own.

Besides checking the multiple sections of any one email account, you should also consider the complex interactions between Blogger accounts, email clients, and Google accounts, and examine any possible email addresses - both GMail and non GMail addresses - current and past, with similar persistence.

Consider all individual email accounts, that may be combined automatically.

If you use GMail, or any email delivery service which provides ability to manage and use multiple email accounts from a single email desktop, you should check settings in every such email system, for multiple account setup.

Your Blogger account needs to be based on an active email account (GMail, or non GMail). If you are intentionally obscuring your Blogger account, you're going to have a problem here. There are various reasons why you may not see every key email message, in your Inbox, at first glance.

Diligent searching may reduce time spent in online forums.

Searching for incoming email, carefully, may reduce the amount of time you spend in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, asking for help retrieving your account name or email address from Blogger records, or asking why your non BlogSpot URL now redirects your readers to a page full of advertisements.

Prevent disappointment and future regret - check your "Bulk" / "Spam" folders, for all possible email accounts and clients which you use, periodically. And consider possible spoof filtering effects.

Custom Domain Migration - Managing The Traffic

Your blog depends upon traffic for its success.

Anything that affects the traffic to your blog, such as any change in the URL, affects the success of your blog. Publishing the blog to a custom domain, like renaming the blog, will affect traffic to your blog. The effects of the change will vary from blog to blog, because of the different traffic to every different blog.

• Followers. People who find your blog because of recommendations by other people.
• Search engines. Robotic processes which methodically surf your blog, and provide dynamic indexing to people who search for information.
• Subscribers. People who read your content from their newsfeed reader, such as the dashboard Reading List.
• Viewers. People who read your content from their browser.

No two blogs are the same - and no two blogs will have the same combinations of traffic sources.

The differing combinations, of traffic sources, will make every custom domain migration unique.

Migration results are not predictable - but they can be improved.

You cannot predict what will happen to your blog, during the migration - but you can plan, and improve the experience.

Planning and executing the migration properly will help your blog recover faster, from traffic loss caused by the URL change.

1. You'll start with a new URL, which will be unknown by the search engines. Your blog won't get as much new reader traffic, until it's indexed, under the new, non BlogSpot URL.
2. You'll end up with a better known blog, with a non BlogSpot URL - and more new reader traffic because of the new, non BlogSpot URL.

The better you plan this simple process, the faster the traffic to your blog will pick up, after the URL change. And, that's all that you should want - to get from point 1 to point 2, faster.

A blog with a new URL is again unknown, by URL, to the search engines.

When your blog has a new URL, that URL is initially unknown to the search engines, and other web services. The search engines, and other external web services, index by URL.

• With a new blog, you have no content, no readers, no search engine reputation, and no statistics.
• With a new URL, there is no indexed content, and no statistics.
• With a blog recently republished under a new URL, you have content and readers - but no search engine reputation, or statistics, under the new URL.

You use the content and readers, and regain your search engine reputation. And you watch your statistics.

If your blog has its own search engine reputation, it gets indexed by the search engines, directly. As the BlogSpot URL of your blog is indexed, the "301 Moved Permanently" redirect, from the BlogSpot to custom domain URL, will contribute to reputation for the domain URL.

A blog with established readers has reputation - and a start to re indexing.

If your blog has readers who link their blog to yours, your blog gets indexed by the search engines, indirectly. As a readers blogs is indexed, and a link to your blog is found, the link to your blog is followed. Readers blogs that point to the BlogSpot URL, again using the "301 Moved Permanently" redirect, will similarly contribute to reputation for the domain URL.

Each of the various traffic sources - people (Followers / readers / subscribers), and robots (search engines and other automated services) - will contribute, in different ways, to the indexing of the domain URL.

First, learn how to prepare and support a custom domain.

Before you start, understand the right way to purchase and setup a custom domain. And understand the nature of, and need for, the 3 to 5 day Transition Period, which follows the purchase of a new domain, using "Buy a domain" - and should be observed with any new domain.

During the migration, you'll find:

• You'll get better results from a properly setup domain. Always start, with a properly setup domain.
• You'll find the diagnostic utilities in Google Webmaster Tools to be essential, in helping you objectively observe and correct any problems.
• As search engines index your blog, they adjust their indexing to follow the rate that you publish. If you publish weekly, they will, at most, re index your blog weekly. The less often you publish, the less often the blog gets re indexed.
• The entire blog won't be re indexed at one time. You'll always have new posts, that have not been individually indexed.
• While re indexing of the blog is in progress, you'll have some posts indexed under the BlogSpot URL, and other posts indexed under the domain URL.
• As additional posts are indexed under the domain URL, those same posts will drop from indexing under the BlogSpot URL. If this were not so, you'd end up with "duplicate content" penalties. The purpose of the "301 Moved Permanently" redirect is to avoid this duplication, and penalties.
• With the indexing of the blog split between the two base URLs, the reputation overall will be lower. You get better reputation with all content indexed under one base URL - and this won't be the case until the migration is complete.
• With lower reputation, your posts will have poorer SERP position - some posts indexed under the old BlogSpot URL, others under the new domain URL - though all SERP entries will get your readers to the new domain.
• With poorer SERP position overall, you'll have a period of significantly less search originated traffic.
• The more often that you publish, during the migration, the more you'll compensate for the drop in reader traffic.
• As the blog is re indexed under the new URL, reputation - and Page Rank - will pick up again.
• You'll observe activity, in Webmaster Tools, for both the old and new URLs, for a while after the domain becomes active.
• Some tools, used under simple blog renames, are not used with custom domains. Specifically, custom domain publishing does not use the post feed redirect.

Beware gratuitous scripts, which interfere with BlogSpot to domain redirection!

If your blog has gratuitous scripted redirection, installed to block country local domain redirection, you'll want to remove this code. Country local domain redirection blocking, followed by BlogSpot to domain redirection, will leave some readers (only some, not all) seeing

Too many redirections!

or similar advice, in their browser. Other readers may simply see the blog as offline, because of its new URL.

The transition period, and loss of reputation and traffic, can't be avoided.

You cannot avoid the new domain transition period, and reduced traffic level - you will have to endure it. In the end, if you manage the migration properly, you'll find that it was worth it.

With a new, properly setup non BlogSpot URL, more blog content, and the same reader population (forwarded from the BlogSpot URL), search engine reputation (and Page Rank) will pick up and should continue rising, beyond where it was before you started the migration.

Custom Domain Setup, Your Blog, and Your Readers

Periodically, someone interested but uncertain asks about the practical effects of publishing their blog to a custom domain.

Will all the posts (the comments, the customised template, ...) be the same?

or

Will my readers be able to find my blog?

or even

Will I lose Page Rank, and if so, how long?

These are all valid concerns.

Publishing your blog to a custom domain is pretty much like publishing it to another BlogSpot URL, except you end up with two (maybe 3) URLs, each of which will work equally well.

• The BlogSpot URL.
• The primary URL for the domain.
• A possible secondary URL for the domain.

There's no visible change to the content - it simply republishes to the new (non-BlogSpot) URL. If you want to go back to normal publishing, you republish to BlogSpot. Simple?

Since the BlogSpot URL continues to work, everybody who has the BlogSpot URL bookmarked can continue to access the blog, transparently. You'll experience a brief loss of page rank, but you'll still get some traffic from your established readers, and from the search engines, and other robotic services.

You will have to update your membership in external services, such as search engines and similar robotic processes.

If you are vigorously attentive to the needs of your readers, and external services, your search engine reputation / Page Rank will pick up, somewhat faster than you acquired it originally. And if you publish content and update the blog at the same rate as before you got the custom domain, your search engine reputation / Page Rank will keep on going up, after it has regained its former level. And that's what a custom domain will do for you.

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New Custom Domains "In Transition"

DNS, which is the backbone of Google Custom Domain publishing, is a distributed directory of all Internet hosts - like the Google servers where your domain is published.

We say that DNS is a "distributed" service, because the data provided to you, by DNS, resides not in one, or two, but millions of servers - all over the Internet, and owned by many different companies and individuals.

When you setup a new domain, using a DNS Management utility provided by your domain registrar or another DNS host, you can add the DNS entry when convenient to you. Some DNS management utilities will provide advice

Please wait 12 to 24 hours before trying to use your new URL.

or a similar message, simply because the DNS information that you enter, through the utility to your DNS server, has to be distributed to the other DNS servers, all over the Internet.

If your registrar's DNS servers aren't immediately accessible to the Google servers, and you try to publish to your brand new personal domain, you may see problems.

Seconds after you setup the new domain with your registrar, the Blogger "Advanced Settings" wizard may not be able to access the DNS entries which you just created. You'll probably see an old friend

Another blog is already hosted at this address.

where the wizard is simply saying to you

We don't see that domain pointing to "ghs.google.com".

In an alternative scenario, your registrar may be immediately accessible to the Google servers, you publish your blog to your custom domain, and you're happy. But wait - there's more! One of your readers, on the other side of the world, sees your advertisement

Hey! Checkout my new non-BlogSpot URL for my blog!

and checks it out, and gets another old friend

404 Not Found

because your reader uses a DNS server that has no immediate access to your registrar.

The latter two scenarios involve you when you manually set up your custom domain - using your registrar's DNS utility, followed by the Blogger "Advanced Settings" wizard. If you use the Blogger "Buy A Domain For Your Blog" utility, you use neither of those wizards.

The latter wizard takes a mere few seconds, when you're properly prepared. That wizard, replacing both the registrar's utility and the Blogger "Advanced Settings" wizard, can't include a 12 to 24 hour delay. So instead of the wizard taking 12 to 24 hours, it does immediately the work of the registrar's setup, and queues up a separate task - the equivalent of the "Advanced Settings" wizard - to run after the (formerly) "12 to 24" hours. To make sure that the "12 to 24" hour period is not too short, Blogger gives you (the DNS system) "72 hours" to catch up.

When you finish the purchase and setup of your new custom domain, go to your dashboard, and click on the "View Blog" link. There, you will likely see an old friend in the making

Your blog is in transition

Unfortunately, as I state above, the observed transition period has been 72 hours, not "12 to 24 hours". During the 72 hours (currently, slightly longer)

1. The blog contents will be published, using the new domain URL.
2. The BlogSpot URL will continue to load the blog with the BlogSpot URL.
3. The custom domain URL "mydomain.com" will load the blog with the domain URL.
4. You will, effectively, appear to have 2 separate blog aliases.
5. Accessories like Following will issue mysterious error messages.

   We're sorry...
   
   This gadget is configured incorrectly. Webmaster hint: Please ensure that "Friend Connect Settings - Home URL" matches the URL of this site.

During the transition period, consider carefully the dual personality of the BlogSpot URLs. Remember that the "www" alias of the BlogSpot URL does not simply redirect to the root of the BlogSpot URL, in the same way that the root of the custom domain URL might redirect to the "www" alias. Expect unpredicted behaviour here, when comparing the BlogSpot URLs.

If you are concerned with search engine reputation and visibility, and are diligently keeping your blog's sitemaps updated, you'll want to consider these issues carefully. You should wait until after the transition period has ended, to update the sitemap.

• You don't want the search engines trying to index a URL that might give them a "404" from their own DNS servers not having your new domain.
• You don't want the search engines trying to index the new URL while the old one is still active, and distinct, lest both the BlogSpot and domain URLs be perceived as "duplicate content".
• You don't want the search engines to start indexing the domain URL, until the BlogSpot URL provides the "301 Moved Permanently" to the domain URL, and gives the new domain its starting kick.
• You do want the search engines to start, re indexing the entire blog, as soon as possible - after migration completes.

Timing is everything, here. Wait until the Transition period ends, and the "301 Moved Permanently" is in effect. Be aware of the issues - and manage the migration, aggressively.

If you purchased the domain using "Buy a domain", the above details are not a problem, because Blogger applies the Transition time period, automatically. If you setup the domain yourself, after purchasing from a registrar - as is the case for every domain purchased after 2012 - you need to maintain a Transition period, yourself, or expect problems, during the first week or so.