Schizophrenia And Custom Domain URLs - October 2012

Now that the custom domain publishing feature is back online again, there remains one feature of custom domain publishing to be restored to the Blogger dashboard.

The very popular Blogger dashboard option to redirect the domain root (aka "naked domain"), to the "www" alias, may not be reliable - or even available.

Too many people report

I can't redirect the naked domain - I can select the option, but the next time I look, the box will be un checked.

and

My "www" alias works just fine - but the domain root now returns a "404".

Fortunately, there are alternative solutions to provide the naked domain redirect.

There are 3 ways to redirect the domain root to the primary ("www" - or any alternate selection) alias.

• Registrar Domain Manager forwarding.
• Blogger Publishing redirect.
• Google Apps "Domain settings" redirect.

Registrar Domain Manager

The Registrar Domain Manager provides, for some blog owners, the currently most obvious alternative to the Blogger Publishing redirect - but it is not the simplest to use. Depending upon the registrar, and the nature of the domain manager / DNS servers, this procedure may not even work.

Some registrars will recommend simple DNS or frame forwarding to the BlogSpot URL - and this "solution", we know from experience, will not work at all. One problem here will be spurious spam classification, caused by what looks like an offsite redirect of the domain root.

Blogger Publishing

The Blogger Publishing redirect option is the most obvious alternative. This is the preferred option, in custom domain publishing - and re publishing - procedures.

Google Apps "Domain settings"

A less obvious option, the Google Apps "Domain settings" redirect option, is a third solution.

For any newly purchased domain - as well as for domains purchased directly from a registrar, it's possible (though currently, with some effort) to setup a Google Apps domain administrator account. Next, use the "Change how your naked domain is redirected" screen, and change or recycle the domain root redirect.

Which ever alternative you chose - or made to work, the domain root should now redirect to the alias of your choice.