Setup BlogSpot Custom Domain

I have talked about importance of custom domain name for BlogSpot blogsso many time, and anyone who is on free blogging platform like BlogSpot.com or WordPress.com, it’s my recommendation to use a custom domain name instead of free domain name. If you are a starter, let me clear your doubts regarding free domain name Vs. custom domain name.

• When you start a blog on BlogSpot.com, you usually get a domain name like (name.blogspot.com) and this is what we call as a free domain name. Where as custom domain name is something like name.com. A good example is ShoutMeLoud.com which is a custom domain name. There are endless benefits of using a custom name for your BlogSpot blog instead of free name, and you can read all about it here. Now, setting up the custom domain feature in BlogSpot is a bit of technical part, but this DIY guide is targeted to non-technical people. Here I’m sharing the complete step by step guide which you can follow to add a BlogSpot custom domain to your blogger blog. In this case, I’m assuming you have purchased domain name from ShoutMyDomain, and you have access to your BlogSpot blog. FYI, I also offer free BlogSpot custom domain name setup for all the shouters who are buying domain name from ShoutMyDomain, to help non-technical people.

Complete Guide to Setup BlogSpot With your Custom Domain Name:

Very first thing which you need to do is to purchase a domain name, which will usually cost around $11 for one year. The kind of advantage custom name will give you, $11 is completely worth investing. More over, think about what sounds much better: ShoutMeloud.blogspot.com or ShoutMeLoud.com.

If you have never purchased a domain name before, here are guides which will help you to select the right name for your blog.  I recommend you to read it, and decide the name of domain which you want to buy. I highly recommend you to look out for .com domains instead of any other (.info, .org).

Once you have decided upon the domain name, head over to ShoutMyDomain and purchase your domain. (5 minute work). It accepts payment via Paypal, and if you are in India and don’t have PayPal or credit card, you can use contact form and make payment via bank deposit/net-banking to activate your domain.

Now, I assume you have two things with you:

• Your BlogSpot blog up and running
• You have access to your domain name

We have to make changes at two places, and once you setup the custom domain feature of BlogSpot, Google will take care of all traffic migration and you will not lose any traffic Or back links.

Add Register domain name to your BlogSpot Blog:

This is the first step where you will be adding the register domain name to your blog. Simply login to your BlogSpot dashboard, and head over toSettings > Basics and you will see an option which says Publishing >+ Add a custom domain Point your own registered domain to your blog.

Here you need to add the domain name that you have purchased, and after adding the domain name, it will give two CNAME records and 4 A records which we will be needing in the next step. Click on + Add a custom domain, and add the domain name which you have purchased. Once you have added the domain name with www, you will see an error saying “We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 12.” and you will get the CNAME record that you need to use. (See screenshot)

Now. once you have these CNAME details, it’s time to login to your domain control panel, and make changes. Now, follow the next step of this guide and your BlogSpot custom domain name setup will be finished in no-time.

Setting up CNAME and A Record for BlogSpot Custom-Domain Name

This part may sound technical, but it’s as easy as copy-pasting. If you are not using ShoutMyDomain to buy domains, you might have to figure out on other domain registrar company on how you can edit the CNAME and A record. Once you are inside your domain-dashboard, it will be as easy as copy-pasting anything.

• Login to your ShoutMyDomain dashboard or if you using any other domain registrar, login to that dashboard.
• Click on the domain name which you have purchased inside your dashboard, and you will be on Manage domain page.
• Scroll down until you see the option for DNS management, and click on Manage DNS.

• Clicking on Manage DNS will open a Pop up, where you can setup your CNAME, A, MX or any other DNS record related to your Domain.
• ON the Pop-up box, Click on CNAME record and click on Add CNAME record.

• Now, you need to add 2 CNAME records, which we already have from the step 1. (When we added custom domain name). Now, all you need to do is, add the details one by one after clicking on Add CNAME record, and add details. I have added two screenshots in case of any confusion, you can refer to them.
• Here is the screenshot for first CNAME record where I have added www as name and ghs.google.com as Value. This CNAME record is same for all the BlogSpot blogs, and the second CNAME record will be specific for your domain name.

• And here I have added the second CNAME record which is specific to your BlogSPot custom domain name.

• Since you are setting this up for the first time, instead of “Modify record” you will see add record. So don’t get confuse at any step. In case if you do, feel free to ask me for help via comments.

Adding A records to your Domain DNS

This is the last step where you just need to add 4 I.P. Address into your A record. The process is going to the be the same as above, all you need to do is click on A record instead of CNAME, and start adding the A record. I’m sharing one screenshot which will show you how to add A record, and similarly you can add all 4 A records.

• And on the next screen, leave the Host name part blank and on Destination IPv4 address add 216.239.34.21

Like this you need to have total 4 A record and your final screen for A record will look like this. Here are the  I.P. address of 4 A record which you need to add.

216.239.32.21
216.239.34.21
216.239.36.21
216.239.38.21

Here is the final screenshot of my A record page:

Now once you have setup CNAME and A record, you need to wait for 1-4 hours for this changes to reflect and once done, you again need to go back to your BlogSpot dashboard, and add custom domain name like we did in step 1. Usually after 2-4 hours, you will be able to add custom name to your Blogspot blog without any issue. If you getting the same error “We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 12.” that means, you need to wait for couple of more hours to add the custom domain name. So, here is the final screenshot which I see after setting it up:

Once it’s added, Google will take care of redirection part, and anyone if opens your BlogSpot blog address, he will be automatically redirected to your new custom name. This will also work seamlessly for internal pages, and you will not lose any traffic or link-juice. Also, you need to click on Edit here, and redirect non www version of your domain to www. Simply click on Edit and check the options which says “Redirect xxxx.com to www.xxxx.com”

Here is the official help page from BlogSpot team for setting up Custom domain name, and below is a overview video of all the above mentioned steps.

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