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How to transfer your domain name purchased via Blogger

As a fairly new blogger, I found Google’s Blogger application extremely easy to use, so it was the perfect solution for me when I had to quickly throw up a site. Days later, when I wanted to change the address from blogspot to a custom domain, I followed the easy instructions in Blogger settings, and Google handled everything with no hassle. Once I checked the availability of the domain name I wanted to use, it was ‘automatically’ attached to my new Blogger site.

However, months later, after building a customized WordPress site (i.e. this one!), I wanted to launch it on my domain name purchased through Blogger. I quickly discovered, this wasn’t going to be easy!  The problems began when I couldn’t even find my DNS settings anywhere in my Blogger dashboard. Here’s what I had to do!

First, identify who your domain host is. Google may not have told you, so you’ll have to click HERE and enter your domain name to find out.

Your domain is probably registered with one of Google’s registration partners, either eNom or GoDaddy.My domain host was GoDaddy. Next, I had to figure out how to get to my DNS name servers…and found this information:

Advanced DNS settings

Your domain is registered with godaddy . If you want to change advanced DNS settings or update your WHOIS information, you can access godaddy ‘s DNS control panel.

Changes to your advanced DNS settings, such as MX and CNAME records, may disrupt any Google services that you’ve activated for your domain.

How do you access the GoDaddy DNS control panel? Well, via Google Apps! When you registered, you should have received an email from Google Apps that looks like the following:

From: google-apps-do-not-reply@google.com
Subject: Google Apps — Domain registration confirmation

If you haven’t already created an administrator account for your domain, click the following link:
(live link will be here on your email)

Once you have set up an admin account for your domain, you will have access to the Google Apps control panel. Here you can monitor the status of your services, manage your user accounts and email lists, create web pages, and customize the interface and services to your organization’s needs. Through the control panel, you can also view and edit all your DNS settings, update your WHOIS information, and renew your domain before it expires. Please keep your WHOIS info up-to-date so that GoDaddy.com can contact you with important domain registration information. To access the control panel in the future, you can bookmark https://www.google.com/a/(new domain name)

Once you’re in your Google Apps website as the GoDaddy administrator for your own domain name, you will have access to DNS name servers which you can then change. Make sense?

Whew! Wish someone had told me what a hassle it would be to transfer the domain name. Even after all this, I discovered it still takes a while for all the DNS servers to propogate all the ISPs so your new site will appear. Good Luck! Hope this helps!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Technical Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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