In this article we will look at obtaining a custom domain name for blogspot. You can buy your domain name from several vendors, but there are several advantages in obtaining them from blogger itself.
Before we go into details about obtaining a domain name first you have to select a domain name for your site.
Tips for selecting your domain name:
Tips for selecting your domain name:
- Select a meaningful name to your site. It should be unique so come up with different domain names.
- Avoid long one as it will be difficult for the readers to remember.
- Try to select a name that best suits your site's content.
- Avoid dashes in the domain name as it makes difficult to remember.
- .com domain names are relatively popular, when compared to other top level domains (TLDs) such as .net, .org, .info etc. But others are specifically used for different purposes and if your one fits into one of those categories, then it is always advisable to buy the .com domain as well with the other one and redirect your traffic to your site from .com domain. If someone else buys the .com version of it then you will loose much of your traffic.
Once you have selected your domain name it is very important to select the domain name registrar that you are going to use. There could be slight variations in price among different companies, but you should consider the convenience and the services provided by them.
Advantages of buying your domain name through blogger (Google):
- Easy registration process.
- Domain name lock (prevents it from selling to others).
- Easy integration with your blog (all the traffic comes to your blog through ***.blogspot.com will be redirected to www.****.com automatically): This include the re-direction of your old blogspot links to your new custom domain name. This may take one day to several days (mostly within 5days).
The domain name registration through Blogger costs 10 USD per year. Even though blogger sells the domain name they actually provide this service through two well know registrars.
- eNom
- goDaddy
Registration process:
- Select your domain name
- Decide which domain registrar you are going to register with.
- Decide about which top level domains (TLDs) you are going to buy.
- Open your blog dashboard and goto Settings and then click Basic
- Under Publishing you will find a link called Add a custom domain Click that one.
- If you have already own a custom domain name then click Switch to advanced settings and continue with the process.
- If you are going to register with Blogger: Enter the selected name in the box and check the availability. Repeat this process until you find a unique name for your domain (i.e. a name that has not been registered before).
- Then Continue to registration and enter your domain name registration details.
- Once you filled that information Accept the terms and conditions and Proceed to Google Checkout.(If you don't have an account with "Google Wallet" then create one)
- Important: Please don't press back button at this stage.If you press the back button or if it crashed in between then you will receive the following message when you try to register again."We found an existing order for this domain. Please contact support". What you can do to over-come this problem:
- Clearing cache helped some people, but it didn't help me. I also tried clearing all the temporary data (history, cache, etc.), also tried restating the computer: nothing helped.
- For some people it worked after a week; some say after 36 hours (personally I didn't try).
- But if you want to register your domain urgently then, what you can do is add another author (by adding another Gmail address to the authors list - make it as admin account). Then try to order the domain name by registering through that new author's account (keep in mind the above mentioned tips).
- You can register another domain name without any problem.
Also note that the Google page ranking will be affected by these (custom domain name change) changes and it will take a while to catch up to the previous state (some say it took about 6 months get the same traffic as before: mainly organic traffic).
Hope you had a trouble free registration process. Enjoy your new domain name.
Hope you had a trouble free registration process. Enjoy your new domain name.
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