How do I use a custom domain with a blogger account?Dave, I've been working with Google's Blogger service for a while, running a weblog, but looking at your site and various others makes me want to have everything appear on my own domain, not theirs. So, how do I do it? Lots of people I've talked to say that it's not possible with Blogger, but I can't believe it. While I have a basic blogger account of my own, I'm not an expert on how to work with the Google system. Instead, I asked my colleague Sarah Lewis of Abundant Media to share her expertise in this area. Here's what she shared: To configure your blogger account to work with a specific domain name, you need to have a Web hosting account with that domain name already set up, an account that allows you to access your files via regular FTP. Once you have that, you'll start by logging in to your Blogger account, and, from the Dashboard, click the "Change Settings" link (it looks like a gear) for the blog you wish to change. Click the "Publishing" link; it's just under the tabs at the top. You'll see something like this:  Click the "FTP" link (it's highlighted in the picture). You'll see a bunch of fields you need to fill out. I've numbered them in the picture below, and we'll go through them one by one.  To fill in this screen, you'll need to gather some information about your domain name and the FTP account that's set up for it. Typically most of this information is in an order confirmation email from your host. If you're already using FTP, it's the same information. Here's what you'll need: 1. FTP Server: Frequently, this is just your domain name (in my case, somethingepic.com). 2. Blog URL: If you are going to make your blog the main part of your site, this will be http://www.yourdomain.com . Make sure to put in the http:// part, and don't put a slash at the end. 3. FTP Path: This is the trickiest value. The easiest way to figure out what it should be is to log into your account with an FTP client. When you connect, navigate to the place where your main website files go. In my case, that means I click on a folder called "public_html". The folder is typically called "public_html" or "www" but it varies by host. Once you are in the right place, your FTP client will tell you the path. Take a look at the highlighted portion of this picture:  You'll just want to type in whatever you see there, in my case, /public_html/ . 4. Blog Filename: This can be anything you want, but normally, you'll probably just use index.html . I've gone with index.php so that I can use some PHP features, but there's no need to do that unless you have a specific reason. 5. FTP Username and FTP Password: These are just what they say they are. Your host should have given you these when you signed up, and if you did step 3, you've just used them. Once you've filled in all of these items, just go to the bottom of the page and click "Save Settings". If all was well, you'll see a message at the top that says "Settings Were Saved Successfully. You must Republish your blog to see the changes." Go ahead and click the "Republish" button. Depending on the size of your blog, this could take a little while, but eventually you'll receive a "Your blog published successfully." message. Take a look at your domain. Doesn't your blog look nice there? Test the links and make sure they work. If they don't, there's probably a setting that's not quite right. If you have any trouble with any part of this process, leave a comment and I'll try to help you through it. The nice thing about Blogger is that even if you mess it up, your posts are still saved on their site, so you won't lose anything if things don't go as planned.
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Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader. awesome - i now have my blog on my server - thank you!!! hopefully it works better this way for seo - id imagine it would... thanks for your advice! ben Posted by: Benjamin Lynch at June 30, 2005 11:48 AMDave, Great tip. It took me some time to find out how to do this. I guess I should have written YOU and gotten the answer sooner. Anyway I had to wade through a lot of help files to find this information for my self. Keep up the good work Dave, Frank Woodman Jr Posted by: Frank Woodman Jr at July 1, 2005 6:22 AMHello. I have a blog in blogger.com. And I also have a domain name delinares.com. I've set up my domain to create a DNS entry, recetas.delinares.com to recetasparatodos.blogspot.com, but if you try to access to recetas.delinares.com I've got a 404 error . Can you help me? Thank you for this article, Dave (and Sarah). I have had a Blogger blog for a couple months now, but I wanted to experiment with WordPress, maybe. I didn't want people to have to be redirected to a new URL. Buying my own domain and being able to put my blog right into it, so easily, solves that problem. Every time I learn one of these new blogging tricks, I feel more in control! This is great! Posted by: Dave at February 23, 2006 8:32 PMGreat tip dave! i transfered my test blog on my new domain for experiment purpose only, i never thought that was so easy. thanks! Posted by: leo at April 20, 2006 11:08 AMhi -- thanks for the tip. everything worked, except for moving the archives over. the archive links don't work. did i do something wrong here? Posted by: James at May 28, 2006 1:29 AMHi! I do have a similar problem. Do these steps apply to subdomains too? Im trying to publish a Blogger blog into my subdomain but I cant seem to make the entries appear on the subdomain. Instead of the entires appearing, these tags appear instead:
# posted by @ > comments links to this post
---- I just graduated from college and bought a domain to move my website off onto. I figured while I was at it I should see if I could move my blog as well so everything is in one place. Thanks for the instructions - I think I'm going to give it a whirl. But I have a couple questions: Very easy to understand, esp with the screenshots...thanks...regards to all,Gopal Posted by: Gopal Aggarwal at January 22, 2007 10:54 PMI cannot create an account google will not let me,password rejected.Why? Posted by: Terry Doran at January 29, 2007 4:41 PMThanks Dave for custom domain with FTP, I have tried with new custom domain feature with blogger without FTP(http://www.bitzing.com/2007/02/custom-domain-issue-with-blogger-is-now.html), I am now trying this one. Posted by: Harshal at February 28, 2007 9:00 PMIm using the other option (my own domain, instead of FTP). My domain name is http://jessemonggo.com, which I registered through domainsite.com. If I go to http://jessemonggo.com, it works. But if I add www before jessemonggo.com, I get a 404 error. What could be the problem? In my DNS setting, I have: Help? Posted by: jesse at March 5, 2007 11:10 AMDave, Hi I have just switched my blog (google blogger) to my own domain. The example shown above is probably from the old blogger. On the new blogger the process is nearly the same, just a bit more user friendly. They also have a link to a page that gives you exact, detailed instructions. Works like a charm! In reply to Brian's question: There is a function at the top of the publishing settings screen where you can upload and download your blog for backup purposes. thank you dave There is no need to enable FTP for this, is a totally separate thing. All you have to do is to tell, on Settings, that you want to use a custom domain. The FTP comes as a plus, if you want to use your own server but Blogger offers free parking for those custom domains. However, the 404 error that some reader mentioned here is real and I receive it too. Seems to be related to "web pages" service that we should disable for 24 hours...only that I have no idea where to find this service and I am getting a strange error when validating/activating the custom domain and Google support is...somehow missing. Posted by: Exersaucer at August 22, 2007 1:38 PMI get an "Index of /" page when I load the site now... Any suggestions... [DIR] Parent Directory 03-Jan-2007 13:57 - FIGURED IT OUT. If anyone else sees that it's probably because I didn't have any posts! lol Thanks or the GREAT info. this is incredible... Posted by: Charlie at September 19, 2007 8:52 AMIn case it helps anyone with Blogger's custom domains (where your blog is hosted with Blogger / Blogspot) under your own domain name rather than using FTP, there's a step by step with screenshots on Blogger custom domains, including the www problem. Posted by: Improbulus at February 16, 2008 5:38 PMSorry, link didn't publish, see http://www.consumingexperience.com/2008/02/blogger-how-to-use-www-custom-domain.html Posted by: Improbulus at February 16, 2008 5:41 PMhi my name is tameem. and i have a blog named karbonet.blogspot.com and i have bought a domain www.karbonet.com and i create cname "ghs.google.com" but after 2 days when i entered www.karbonet.com on my browser another page displayed. it says "this is a temporary Parking page of Karbonet.com please change the name server." but blogspot says no need to change the name server. please help me with that. Posted by: Tameem at February 26, 2008 2:38 PMHi Dave, recently buy a domain and gives me 404, when put http://housepartylights.net this direction is the blog, if put this direction http: / / www.housepartylights.net gives a mistake, I need des a hand in this, I have done something wrong ... I need to set something in dsn or something well. thank Posted by: leny at March 29, 2008 5:02 PMHi there, im stuck on the first step my blogger doesnt have Switch to; FTP or SFTP Posted by: sheena at April 24, 2008 9:16 PMPublishing Via FTP is a headache if we are posting regularly .. I prefer just to redirect my blog to my custom domain rather than uploading all stuff via FTP ..Anyways well explained dave!! Posted by: colorite at October 21, 2008 11:20 AMwow! thanks a lot Dave! I succeeded on finally having Blogger on my own domain. Thank you very much! I'll link your site for those who are like me who are at a lost when it comes to domains. ^__^ For two weeks now I have been trying to get my domain connected to my blog. I went to many sites and became unsuccessful. I stumble across this one and FINALLY success! Thank you very much! Posted by: The Brotha's at February 4, 2009 9:47 AMWould my followers (through blogger) and anyone who has subscribed to my feed (through feedburner) remain if I moved over to using my own domain name? Posted by: Upstatemomof3 at March 2, 2009 6:56 PMNice way to explain and good work but what should i do if i my traffic goes down, i mean google is not redirecting my blog, first they ask then confirm. Posted by: purchase domain names cheap at March 13, 2009 8:37 AMThanks for the info. I should have use wordpress in first place since i can't use my own domain name with my own hosting geee. Posted by: Eliseo at May 10, 2009 6:50 PMI have a lot to say, but ...
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!
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