Search Engine Reputation, And Vanity Domains

One hot Internet topic, these days, involves specialised ("vanity") domains.

The hot names seem to change, by the week. This week, enom is hyping ".family", ".live", ".rocks", and ".social". Other registrars may have other recommendations.

The blog Address (Name) is a key blog identity element, in a well designed blog. It's visible both to people, and to search engine crawlers.

The requirement that addresses must be unique is a supposed benefit of vanity top level domains - but vanity TLDs, alone, will not provide blog uniqueness. There will always be competition for some names, in any useful Top Level Domain.

My suspicion is that the shinier the TLD, the more competition you may see, between people who plan their uniqueness around choosing the perfect name.

Any popular blog / website subject will have name competition.

I could publish this blog as "chucksblog.com" - and that would be a shiny and unique name. Until another "Chuck" registered "chucksblog.us", or maybe "chucksblog.name". How unique would "chucksblog" be, then? How many readers could I expect, if they know "chucksblog" - but can't remember if it is "chucksblog.com", "chucksblog.info", or "chucksblog.name"?

If your blog has a popular subject, you won't have a unique name - unless you register your name, in every possible TLD that might be relevant to your name. And that will be a financial limitation, for many blog owners.

What name would you want your blog to have? For a truly shiny domain, you'll have competition.

Complete uniqueness == No competition == No interest == No readers.



McDonalds, for instance, may be able to register "mcdonalds.com", "mcdonalds.franchises", "mcdonalds.hamburgers", "mcdonalds.smallbusiness", etc (as each hypothetical TLD comes online) - and local domains "mcdonalds.co.uk", "mcdonalds.de", "mcdonalds.us", and so on.

Very few of the readers of this blog will be in a financial position to do all of that.

enom is hyping ".family", ".live", ".rocks", and ".social" - this week.



Your uniqueness strategy should include content.

You will have to develop a "uniqueness" strategy based on content - not solely on the address. You will need to understand that your blog may lose traffic, from people who know the blog "name" - but may not remember if "yourname" is a ".com", ".net", or ".us".

Of course, if you publish only to "blogspot", you will automatically have "yourname.blogspot.com", "yourname.blogspot.co.uk", "yourname.blogspot.de", and so on. You won't have "yourname.com", "yourname.net", and "yourname.us", however - unless you pay for the privilege.

Are you getting a feeling for the complexity of the branding issue? Good. Concentrate on content. The search engines index your blog - and provide you traffic - based on informative, interesting, and unique content.

Google denies the value of vanity domains, for raw SEO.

AdWeek weighs the issue, in What’s in a Name on Social?.

When it comes to vanity domains, Google has long denied that they affect search rankings. Their in-house tech team advised way back that registering a vanity domain for the sheer, hopeful sake of page rankings would be a fool’s errand. But there’s a solid number of marketers that disagree, and they watch these things very closely. Chalk it up to wishful thinking, if you like, but time will tell. And there are only so many .com domains available.

Only time will tell. I suggest that you keep your traffic and uniqueness strategy diverse. Don't depend upon a vanity domain, alone, for search reputation and traffic.

For best results, keep it in perspective.

Consider the name issue, if you want. But keep it in perspective. Blogger blogs will benefit from well written and unique content - as much as from a carefully chosen name / URL.

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Some #Blogger blog owners are intent on publishing a blog to a custom domain, using a top level domain that relates to the blog subject. They do this, hoping to have a unique blog name.

They may overlook the idea that Blogger blogs benefit from well written and unique content, as much as from a shiny and unique URL.

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Renewing Your Custom Domain Registration

Some Blogger blog owners, having experienced the anxiety of custom domain setup, intend to carefully maintain their domain registration.

We see a few queries, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, about domain registration renewal.

How do I make sure my registration gets renewed?

or

How do I renew registration before it expires?

or, possibly

My blog now displays a search page! Have I been hacked?

Some registration issues will depend upon how the domain registration was originally purchased.

Domains purchased directly from a registrar - whether using eNom, GoDaddy, or a third party registrar, will have to be renewed directly from the registrar. It's not possible to migrate a direct purchase to Blogger / Google registration for payment, any more than to use the Blogger / Google automatic DNS setup. Once you purchase domain registration from a registrar, you are on your own.

If you used Blogger "Buy a domain", Google Apps, or Google Wallet, to purchase the domain registration, you should get email reminders when registration is expiring. However, this will depend upon whether your Blogger / Google account, under which you purchased the registration, uses an active and accessible email address.

If you choose to anonymise yourself by using a bogus or inactive email address for your Blogger or Google activities, don't expect to get email reminding you, or allowing you to renew domain registration.

The most reliable way to assure the domain remains registered is to use domain auto renewal. You can check your auto renewal settings using the Google Apps administrator account, for the domain (now called the "Admin Console"). Be aware of the oddities of the Google One Login wizard, and Google Apps, when logging in.

For domains purchased before December 2012, you'll use email from Google Apps, or an entry in your Google Wallet log, to retrieve the token to setup your Google Apps account. For domains purchased after November 2012, you will have only a limited access Google Apps account, which you should reset the password, to access.

If you intend to use domain auto renewal, make sure that the bank account (credit, or debit) is active, and currently paid. If your bank rejects the payment, you should get a notice - but again, this will come reliably when the email account associated with the domain is active and accessible by you.

Procedures for renewal after expiration are different - and may cost substantially more than the normal yearly fee.

The best renewal experiences, of course, start with advance planning.

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URL Availability Competition, During "Buy a Domain", Is Similar To "Create a Blog"

Some Blogger blog owners, trying to setup a new blog, discover the hard way that other people are trying to do the same thing.

When I try to use "Create a blog", I keep seeing

This name is not available.

or

Blogger is saying it's available - but as I begin to register, it says that it has already received a request for this name.

Other blog owners discover that the competition between Blogger blog owners, when using "Create a blog", also applies to "Buy a domain". And worse yet, "Buy a domain" involves competition with would be website owners outside Blogger / Google.

Besides the competition with other buyers, there's a problem that the domain purchase process takes time - and during the purchase process, someone else can be purchasing the same domain also.

The longer the purchase process takes you, the greater the possibility that someone else may "steal" the domain from you. You, and the unseen other person, may start the purchase at the same time - but the person who gets the money to their registrar first gets the domain.

Let's use "Create a blog" as a simple example of an address selection process.

1. You type the blog name, of your choice.
2. With every character you type, Blogger checks for availability.
3. Initially, with not enough characters typed, you see bad news.

   Sorry, this blog address is not available.

4. When you have typed enough characters so you are now requesting a unique name, you see good news.

   This blog address is available.

5. Since you have, hopefully, already entered a Title and selected a Template, you now hit the "Create blog!" button.
6. Hoping that you were fast enough, the address which was available half a second previously is available as you hit the button - and the blog name of your preference becomes your new blog name.
7. If you were not fast enough, someone else might have snuck in front of you. Instead of seeing your new blog, you now see the bad news.

   Sorry, this blog address is not available.

The "Create a blog" wizard is simple.

1. You see good news.
2. You hit "Create blog!".
3. You are done.

Even with a "Create a blog" selection period of 1 second - and if your reflexes are not that good, it could take you longer - you could lose out. What if the selection process was longer - instead of 1 second, say 5 minutes? The "Buy a domain" process is a bit more complicated, than "Create a blog".

1. You enter an available domain URL.
2. You hopefully see the good news.
3. Now, you pay for the purchase.
4. You enter all of the details, about your bank account.
5. Google charges your bank a token amount, to verify that you actually entered a valid bank account number.
6. You hopefully see more good news.
7. Now, Google passes the purchase to the registrar.
8. The registrar sends the actual purchase to your bank.
9. Your bank credits the account of the registrar.
10. The registrar then registers the domain, in your name.
11. Google can then setup the addresses in the domain.
12. Blogger can then publish the blog, to the domain.
13. And hopefully, the blog is now live (and In Transition) with the domain URL.

The "Buy a domain" wizard is not simple.

1. You enter an available domain URL.
2. ...
3. The registrar registers the domain, in your behalf.
4. You are done.

Unfortunately, during the amount of time that it takes your bank to pay your registrar, somebody else could be buying the same domain, from another registrar. The longer that it takes your registrar to get paid, the greater the chance that someone else may register the domain, which you have supposedly paid for, before your purchase is complete.

Unfair? Certainly. But, based on the worldwide Internet based domain registry system, it can happen. What's worse, the symptoms of an unsuccessful domain purchase are similar to an attempted purchase restart.

And that leaves you with the uncertainty, when you post in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

Blogger is saying it's available - but as I begin to register, it says that it has already received a request for this name.

And sometimes, after you wait the legendary 2 to 3 days, you find that someone else bought the domain, while you were waiting.

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Using "Buy a domain", From Outside The USA

As custom domain publishing becomes more popular with Blogger blog owners, it's inevitable that people outside the USA would start using it, routinely.

Questions about payment options are seen regularly, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How much does a domain cost?

This used to have a simple answer.

$10 US, charged against a major bank issued credit card.

With the internationalisation of Blogger, the answer becomes significantly more complex.

Using Google Wallet, one may purchase a domain in over 230 countries.

The Google billing system accepts payments in over 230 countries with an international credit card.

We now see mention of specific payment methods which are not accepted - though they appear to be important enough to be documented by Google.

• Health Savings Account (HSA) cards.
• Transit cards.
• Western Union/Money Gram.
• Any escrow type of payment.

From what I have observed, using a bank issued credit card involves pretty complex "peer to peer" type transactions, between at least 3 parties.

1. Google.
2. The bank providing the credit account for the blog owner.
3. The bank providing the payment account for the registrar.

Item #2 provides intriguing options.

• American Express (USD Only).
• Discover (USD Only).
• MasterCard.
• Visa.
• Visa Electron (Outside of US Only).

I have no idea what #3 may involve, internationally. I know that accepting payments, even within the USA, is not as simple as making purchases.

If these options do not satisfy you, personally, you are entitled to purchase a domain from almost any registrar which provides an acceptable payment method. However, you will need to accept some responsibility for the technical details involved, in setting up the domain.

The complexities of International Banking will make "simple" purchases such as non BlogSpot URLs, for Blogger blogs, interesting to watch.

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The Free Domain Registration Service "co.cc" Appears To Be Down

Some Blogger blog owners, trying to save a few dollars while publishing their blogs to a non BlogSpot URL, have used the free service "co.cc" for registering their domains.

As "co.cc" increased its base of "customers", their reputation for providing free registration grew - and they became popular with scammers and spammers.

Last year, Google, weary of the overall poor search engine reputation of co.cc customers, de indexed all websites registered by co.cc. This week, co.cc apparently stopped serving DNS information for its "customer domains".

Strictly speaking, "co.cc" was not a registrar - and the blogs and websites published by its customers were not using registered domains.

"co.cc" was the domain "co", registered by its owner, and providing subdomains.

The "Top Level domain co.cc" - which by its name implied an Internet service operating from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands - was in fact the domain "co", operating out of Korea, and registered in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. All "domains" given out by "co.cc" were in fact sub domains to the domain co.cc - and this is where the problem started.

All blogs and websites, published to a "co.cc" subdomain, were aggregated by the search engines as the "co.cc" domain. As the number of co.cc registered scammy and spammy websites increased, their search engine reputation dropped.

Non spammy blogs and websites either went out of business, or were transferred to legally registered domains, because of the low reputation and lower search engine originated traffic.

The owners of "co.cc" realised that their scam had been outed, and closed down.

Finally, the owners of co.cc - supposedly "JONG SUNG, KIM" of "GOYANG,GYEOUNGGI" - realised that their run was over, and that they could no longer hide their scams and spams behind legitimate blogs and websites. Apparently, they have now shut their doors.




The old adage comes to mind.

You don't get something for nothing.

If you published to a "co.cc" subdomain, you have to publish back to BlogSpot.

If you registered your custom domain using co.cc - and your blog is now offline - you're going to have to publish the blog back to BlogSpot, to get it online again. If you want to use a domain URL, you have to repeat the custom domain setup process - starting with a new, properly paid for, domain URL.

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(Update 2015/02): We now have more of the same, from "co.vu".

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A free ".co.cc" "domain", when it was working, was worth precisely what you paid. Now, it's worth less.

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Custom Domain Purchase - Getting By Without "Buy a domain"

Now that custom domain publishing is once again available, though without the option to buy a domain through Blogger, too many anxious Blogger blog owners are asking the obvious question

How do I buy a domain?

Not a lot of blog owners want to be told

Contact the registrar of your choice.

The backup to "Buy a domain" would be to buy a domain directly from a registrar - however, this presents too many challenges to the casual blog owner.

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(Update 2012/10/09): "Buy a domain for your blog" is once again part of the Publishing wizard.

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Fortunately, there is a substitute to "Buy a domain", available through Google. Google Apps - which is the support organisation for "Buy a domain" itself - provides the option to buy a domain, along with the Google Apps Dashboard. Google Apps does not use easy to remember URLs, unfortunately.

To use the Google Apps equivalent of "Buy a domain", you start from the "Home Page" for Google Apps.

http://google.com/a/domain

This currently redirects to

https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/standard/new3

which is titled

Get started with Google Apps for free

From here, you find the all important advice

Don't have a domain yet?
No Problem. You can register a new domain starting from $8 a year.

accompanied by the button "Find domain".

Hitting the "Find domain" button, you get a display that's similar in functionality to "Buy a domain" - except the pulldown list of available Top Level Domains is currently a bit different from the selections offered by "Buy a domain".

To get a better selection of Top Level Domains, you'll have to go to

https://www.google.com/a/signup/?hl=en&source=gafb-globalnav-en

Here you will have to fill out the "You and your business" form, and hit "Next". The next display will start with "Check Availability" - and will provide a much longer TLD selection list.

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You Do Have To Add A Second "CNAME"

We're seeing evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forums, from blog owners who read the out of date instructions, about using "Buy a domain".

We see considerable confusion, where people using that feature insist that they don't have to add a "CNAME". In other cases, people using the Blogger / GoDaddy DNS Configuration wizard will think that the second "CNAME" is being added for them.

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(Update 2013/09): The second "CNAME" won't be required, in all cases. If you don't see instructions for adding a second "CNAME", focus your efforts on getting the domain working, with righteous base DNS addresses,

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Right now, everybody has to add their own domain ownership verification token - aka the second "CNAME".

We're hoping that the (currently offline) "Buy a domain" wizard will automatically add the domain ownership verification - just as it adds the other DNS addresses - but we'll see that, when we see it. The Blogger / GoDaddy wizard should, likewise, take care of this, on your behalf - but right now, it doesn't. The bottom line? If you go to the Publishing wizard, and see

Error 12

or a variant, after typing the domain URL into "Advanced settings", better get busy.

What not all blog owners realise is that the new "CNAME" must be just that. Blogger is not being arbitrary, or pedantic, in requiring precision.

• It must be a "CNAME". A "TXT" will not work.
• The "Name" value must be specified precisely as supplied (Plus or minus the trailing period!).
• The "Destination" value must be specified precisely as supplied (Plus or minus the trailing period!).

You cannot fly by the seat of your pants, and try what seems like it might work, as a "substitute". Webmaster Tools provides a blog ownership verification process - which may, or may not help.

If the registrar for your domain does not allow the addition of this "CNAME", you will need to setup a third party DNS host for your domain. You do have to add this second "CNAME" - even if this may conflict with older Blogger Help instructions.

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Custom Domain Setup Now Lacks The "Buy a Domain" Wizard

As we sift through the wreckage of the blogs damaged by the recent Blogger custom domain security issue, we note a significant omission. The "Buy a Domain For Your Blog" wizard is conspicuous in its absence.

When I click on the Settings - Publishing options, I don't even have the option to check availability or purchase a domain name. Where is the "Buy a domain" display?

Right now, it appears that "Buy a domain" was sacrificed, so that the general custom domain publishing feature could be restored more promptly (though not promptly enough, for many blog owners). There are several tasks that must be completed by "Buy a domain", which are complex - and the necessary coding simply could not be completed by Tuesday of this week. I saw one message of hope.

We will be restoring the ability to purchase a custom domain from Blogger soon.

We'll simply have to have faith, that they are working on this feature as we lament its current absence - and that its absence is brief..

In the mean time, some wanta be domain owners have found a domain purchase wizard provided by Google Apps - though that's not "Buy a domain". Google Apps has two different wizards providing domain purchase options, each with a widely different address and Top Level Domain menus.

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(Update 2012/10/09): "Buy a domain for your blog" is once again part of the Publishing wizard.

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Custom Domain Publishing Is Back - And With A New Detail

After a very stressful week, Blogger Engineering has restored the custom domain publishing option.

Last week we encountered an issue that could affect Blogger users in the process of configuring a custom domain, during the verification of ownership of domains between the provider and Blogger. Blogs with previously configured custom domains were not affected.

With the reason for disabling custom domain publishing being security, Blogger Engineering has added a step in the publishing process, to add a random token as a "CNAME", and verify your right to publish to your domain, from Blogger. You get the random token from the "settings instructions" document, "How do I use a custom domain name for my blog?".

See the URL of this (hypothetical) settings instructions document?

http://www.blogger.com/custom-domain-instructions.g?cnameVerificationToken=VPTRE6SUB6JM+gv-G47P6DIR6KFENZUFIFYWSQJJPDYFZK4SQMUUIUFLYLCQD4OIGDFA.domainverify.googlehosted.com.&domain=www.hotspotshield.com

This is an example. If you're registering a domain other than "www.hotspotshield.com", you're going to have a different token - which should be a function of the BlogSpot and domain URLs. You'll also note another case sensitivity issue - "www.hotspotshield.com" and "www.HotSpotShield.com" will produce completely different tokens.
Now, it's an out of date example.

http://www.blogger.com/custom-domain-instructions.g?cnameVerificationToken=GKBPLXBRMT5M+gv-H5FFOYEKYNXE46EE4A3PLAK6HCDIELS27KQUR5OBKHFKXRKMCTDA.domainverify.googlehosted.com.&domain=www.hotspotshield.com

That's what you get, for "www.hotspotshield.com", today. We'll check again, tomorrow. Also, we need to know when "today" ends.

If you buy a domain using "Buy a domain" after today, Google Apps should setup the domain for you - including the second "CNAME". If you bought the domain directly from a registrar, you're going to have to click on "settings instructions", and get the token for your domain. Note that a "CNAME" is required - a "TXT" won't provide the same verification. Also note the various registrar entry conventions, which will affect your use of their domain manager forms.

We are learning a lot of details about the domain verification process, some of which were known in custom domain setup in general - and which are absolutely critical to the process. You will want to read the [FAQ] Why is my domain still in "12" / "404" State?, to get all of the details. The FAQ has been updated several times, so re read it often..

This will, hopefully, provide a solution for the Abandoned Domains problem, and allow everybody to publish to their domain, regardless of whether the domain was previously used for Blogger / Google custom domain publishing by another blog.

On the other hand, if you purchased your domain using "Buy a domain", and you ever need to recycle the publishing settings, you're probably going to have to add this new "CNAME" to your domain, before you can re publish. This will possibly include everybody who purchased their domain, before the Publishing option was disabled - if the domain is not operational right now - and possibly, blog owners who need to un delete a domain published blog.

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