Shorten your Blogger URL for less than $20

@RachelStetten posted a message on Twitter about being tired of typing/remembering her long Blogger domain.  You know, the ones that are “www.example.blogspot.com”?  Yeah those.  I tweeted her back that I could help her get a shorter one for less than $25.00 including hosting.  She was intrigued.

We ended up not moving Rachel’s BlogSpot blog to a self-hosted account which saved hosting fees.  I offer blog hosting for $12.00/year in case anyone is interested.  We merely set-up a custom domain and configured the domain forwarding.  It took a couple tries to get everything set-up 100% where GoDaddy and Google Blogger were getting along in the world wide web of blogging. Luckily Rachel was patient as I worked the kinks out for her.  The kinks were a result of Google being its own animal.  I have forwarded several domains before, but Google wanted the DNS changed instead of just setting up a simple forward only (without changing the DNS).

First, Rachel registered her very own domain at GoDaddy.com (affiliate link).  This works with any registrar so use the one which makes you most comfortable.  Then, we had to update a few settings in GoDaddy.

*reprinteed from Blogger help*

Update the DNS Settings

DNS stands for Domain Name System, and a DNS server determines what site a given address takes you to. So far, you have a domain name but none of the servers on the internet know what to do with it yet. To take care of this, you need to do two things:

• Create a CNAME record for your blog’s address, which should be a subdomain of the form www.example.com.

To create a CNAME record for your domain with the DNS, associating your domain with:

ghs.google.com.

The exact procedure for doing this varies depending on your domain registrar, but you can find instructions for many     common registrars here. If yours isn’t listed, or if you run into other difficulties, you can contact your registrar directly and they’ll be able to help you out.

GoDaddy Instructions for creating a CNAME:

1. 1. Log in to your account at www.godaddy.com.
   2. Open the Domains tab and select My Domain Names. You’ll be directed to the Domain Manager page.
   3. Click the domain that you’d like to use with your blog.
   4. Click the Total DNS Control And MX Records link at the bottom of the section entitled Total DNS.
   5. Click Add New CNAME Record in the box labelled CNAMES (aliases). If you’ve already created a CNAME record for your blog’s address, click the pencil icon next to the existing CNAME record.
   6. For the Name, enter only the subdomain of the address you want to use for your blog. For example, if you picked www.mydomain.com as your address, enter www here.
   7. Enter ghs.google.com as the Host Name. Specify a TTL or use the default setting of 1 hour.
   8. Click OK, and then click OK again

• Create ‘A’ NAME records for your naked domain (blog.com)

Note: The following information applies to naked domains only!! If you're setting up a subdomain then this does NOT apply to you!  

Creating A records for your naked domain is important as it allows Google to redirect people who use in your naked domain name (blog.com) to your blog page (www.example.com). If you do not do this, visitors who leave off the www will see an error page.

There are four separate A records you will create, and can be done from the same control panel you accessed your CNAME records. Simply point your naked domain (example.com, without the ‘www’) to each of the following IP addresses:

216.239.32.21

216.239.34.21

216.239.36.21

216.239.38.21

Your DNS setup is now complete!

Update Your Blogger Settings

Almost done! At this point, you have a domain name, and the DNS servers know to direct people to Google when they want to see your blog. But Google hosts lots of blogs, so we have to make sure the right one is associated with this domain. You’ll do this on the Settings | Publishing tab for your blog in Blogger.

If you’re publishing on Blog*Spot, you’ll see a link near the top offering to switch you to a custom domain. Go ahead and click that link.

The Blog*Spot Address setting now changes to Your Domain. Fill in the domain you registered, and then save your settings.

Now the only thing left to do is to tell everybody about your new address!

Notes:

• If your new domain isn’t taking you to your blog, wait another day or two to make sure all the DNS servers have been updated. If it still isn’t working, contact your registrar to make sure you entered the DNS settings correctly.
• Your original Blog*Spot address will automatically forward to your new domain. That way, any existing links or bookmarks to your site will still work.
• You can use this feature with domains (e.g. example.com) or subdomains (e.g. ). However, you cannot specify subdirectories (e.g.example.com/blog/) or wildcards (e.g. *.example.com).
• Click OK, and then click OK again