Reset Blogger custom domain to blogspot sub-domain

There are bloggers who have converted their blogspot blog to custom domain, but then changed their minds and want to switch back to blogspot. Previously, this was very easy done. One just need to go to Settings > Basic > Publishing and there will be a visible link to reset it back to the blogspot sub-domain.

Blogger, being fond of torturing bloggers now with their new UI (User Interface) have for reasons only known to themselves hidden it.

Now you will still need to go to Dashboard > Settings > Basic and in the section for PUBLISHING and, pay attention, click the obscure X to delete the custom domain and presto, the blog will revert to its previous blogspot sub-domain. Why on earth Blogger do not display the blogspot URL for us see and easily know what to do, why, that is just beyond me.

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Solution for "Another blog is already hosted at this address

Bloggers who wants to convert their blogspot blog to custom domain sometimes get this error message: "Another blog is already hosted at this address".

One solution is to use the Magical Custom Domain Form.

Just type in the custom domain URL into the box as highlighted in the screen shot below:

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Will old images disappear when changing to custom domain?

The answer is no. Images will remain as long as the Google/Blogger account they are associated with is not deleted. I have checked one of my oldest post - How to change the date and time of your post which has a screen shot and which is dated Monday, May 01, 2006, way before I converted the blog to custom domain.

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Apprehensions regarding shift to custom domain - my response

A recent reader expression of apprehension of converting blogspot blog to custom domain is the reason for this post. Worries about the effect of conversion to custom domain is very understandable as it involved a change in URL of the blog. What I can offer is my own experience in custom domain conversion and address one particular concern, does the old URL (including the old permalinks) redirect to the new custom domain URL's.

For traffic, I have published a previous post Effect of conversion to custom domain on traffic where I showed that it had no effect on traffic on my blog (please note the emphasis. I do not guarantee the same for yours). Further in that same post, a commentator complained that it affected traffic to his blog tremendously, but probably he registered his domain direct via Godaddy while I did it via Blogger. see Advice: upgrade to custom domain via Blogger.

Now to the other point about redirecting traffic. Below are 3 permalinks with new custom domain permalinks and below that are 3 permalinks of the same post but with the old blogspot permalink. Confirm for yourself that they do redirect to the new custom domain permalinks.

New custom domain permalinks:

www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/2010/10/make-amazon-banners-open-in-new-window.html

www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/2007/04/making-bookcover-image-link-to-amazon.html

www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/2009/08/recover-accidentally-deleted-post-how.html

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old blogspot permalinks

blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2010/10/make-amazon-banners-open-in-new-window.html"

blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2007/04/making-bookcover-image-link-to-amazon.html

blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2009/08/recover-accidentally-deleted-post-how.html

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Note that your PageRank will definitely be affected initially and it may take time to recover your previous PageRank, but that didn't seem to have affected my blog traffic which is what is important to me and not specifically the PageRank.

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Create sub-domain with custom domain

If you are just interested to know how to create sub-domain, skip directly to How to create sub-domain

A blogger's complaint that the static page he created has unwanted expandable post summary (if I understand him correctly is the push I needed to finally write this post on sub-domain. He suspect it may have something to do with the fact that he is using a template with built-in expandable post summary (again if I understand him correctly. He may be right but it looks that the static page one created via Blogger uses the same template.

Anyway I figure his solution might be to abandon blogspot and upgrade to custom domain and create a sub-domain instead as the sub-domain can use any template which may or may not be the same as the original. It is practically a separate independent website. Look at the one I created recently faq.bloggertipsandtricks.com/ (still under construction). If you go to BT&T FAQ which is the title of that sub-domain, you may see me using the same template, but the blog title, sidebars, etc are different from Blogger Tips and Tricks.

A bit more rambling. While for a long time, Blogger.com was negatively compared with Wordpress, since it abandoned the old classic template and forced everyone to upgrade to the new Blogger xml templates, Blogger has improved by leaps and bounds. Not only that, now coupled with Google Apps, you have a very easy "content management system" to create many things without getting too technical. In fact, I know that Google (here in Malaysia anyway) is working with a students from a University to help SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) using Blogger and Google Apps to create >websites for businesses.

How to create sub-domain

Read rest of post >>>

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Advice: Upgrade custom domain via Blogger and Google Apps

I have done two conversions of my blogs to custom domain. The first one, Blogger Book went well with no hitch. The second one, this blog which is now www.bloggertipsandtricks.com met a hitch. The domain was purchased and registered direct via Blogger Settings > Publishing cum Google Apps. This time, the blog was in transition for 3 days. On the third day, there was a big problem. Neither blogger-tricks.blogspot.com nor www.bloggertipsandtricks was accessible. I quickly changed back from custom domain back to blogspot.

I wonder if the reason for the problem this time was because when converting to custom domain, I completed the captcha (word verification) many times. I did not see the message "changes saved" at the top of the page because each time I completed the captcha, the box for completing the captcha appeared again and I thought I made a mistake, so completed it again.

I did not try to meddle with CNAME and ANAME. What I did was repetitively switched back and forth from custom domain to blogspot to custom domain many times. After a few days, somehow the problem solved by itself and this blog is now published to the custom domain www.bloggertipsandtricks.com

I have read many reports of blogger having problems with custom domain. So my advice to you if you want to go this route not to purchase and register your domain via any third party. Do that direct in Blogger within the blog SETTINGS > PUBLISHING. Google Apps will do everything for you. The conversion should proceed seamlessly without you having to do anything. Everything is automatic though the blog will be in transition for about 3 days.

If you meet any problem, try switching back to blogspot and then to custom domain until the problem is solved just like what happened to me on this second coversion.

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Effect of custom domain conversion on traffic and PageRank

As you know, Blogger has introduced custom domain whereby you can register your own domain name and use it for your blog instead of the sub-domain of blogspot.com. Some may be deterred from using custom domain because it involves a change of URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and PageRank of the blog reduced to being not ranked, both which may reduce the traffic to the blog.

Last year I finally decided to make the leap and convert one of my less traffic blog, http://dummies-guide-to-google-blogger.blogspot.com/ to custom domain, namely http://www.blogger-book.com/.

Regarding PageRank, it did get downgraded from a PageRank of 4 to being not ranked at all. However, the PageRank of Blogger book has now increased to PageRank 1 and is expected to increase as time goes by. The best of all is, it appear that PageRank is not that crucial to getting hits (traffic) as the conversion to custom domain, despite the PageRank downgrad, did not decrease. In fact, from an average of 3020 unique visitors per month from the month of January to October (before conversion), the number of unique visitors have increased to 3976, an increase of 32% (see screen shot below):

However, before I convert, I saved all the permalink prior to conversion to custom domain to test whether the old permalink will be redirected to the new custom domain permalink. I am happy to report that all the old permalink is being effortlessly redirected to the new custom domain permalink (individual post URL).



Update 1:Unlike Wordpress.org where you have your own domian and have to pay for hosting, conversion to custom domain will cost you nothing for hosting. Blogger will how for you free. You only pay for registration and renewal of the domain.

Update 2: A blogger has complained that after conversion, traffic went down to almost zero. It turned out that the blogger registered the domain direct from Godaddy. In my case, I registered using Google Apps via SETTINGS > PUBLISHING, paid for the registration and did the conversion to custom domain all within Blogger, never directly through Godaddy. Looks like most of those bloggers experiencing problems with custom domain did it via Godaddy.

Disclaimer: Do not take this as an encouragement to covert to custom domain as this is my personal experience and may or may not be replicable

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Branding, Domain Name, URL, SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Blogger Custom Domain

After Google Blogger introduced the much improved New Blogger (previously Blogger Beta) and introduced Blogger Custom Domain (click BACK button to get back to this page), it is now possible for you to register your own domain name (own property) for your blog rather than using a sub-domain like myblog.blogspot.com which is the property of Blogger. If you intend to register your own domain for your blog, there are a few factors you should take into considerations, among which are:

Branding

Some, especially those meant for business blogs, may want to consider branding (having a unique name which one hope would get well known and easily remembered). For example, this blog, BloggerDough blog used the blog URL

bloggerdough.blogspot.com/

with the hope that BloggerDough will become a well known brand. It was created to be part of a business website BloggerDough with the URL:

www.bloggerdough.com

created to help other bloggers earn from their blogs. However, choosing a URL like that may not be good for SEO (search engine optimization) as search engines gives great importance to the words in the URL. Perhaps if eventually that blog gets ranked very high by search engine, then it may be found by those searching for "blogger" or "dough" but it would face great competition and not likely to be in the top of the list of result in the SERP (search engine result page). However, if ever the brand gets well known, surfers may type the website URL direct into the browser address bar to get to that website or they may search for "bloggerdough" and the possibility of that website appearing very high in the SERP is very good, likely even at the first of the list as not many other website, maybe even none, are optimized for the key word "bloggerdough". So that website will face no competition for searches for bloggerdough. This is the advantage of branding and a strategy you should go for only if you are prepared to make efforts to promote the brand. An unknown brand will not help you.

Putting key words into URL

Search engines place much importance on the words in the website URL. Try goggling for "blogger for dummies" (key words blogger and dummies) and at time of publishing, web pages from Blogger for Dummies appeared at number 1 and 2 on the list of the SERP and this blog was at number 9 in the SERP because this:

dummies-guide-to-google-blogger.blogspot.com

appeared in the Google site search box at the top in the blog Header.

Another 2 blogs of mine, Dummies Guide to Google Blogger was found at number 6 and 11 in the list, the first was because this the words "blogger" and "dummies" were in the blog URL.

SERP for "blogger for dummies results 1 to 10

Above is supposed to be a single screenshot of a SERP page for "blogger for dummies", but the screen is not tall enough to display the whole page, so it comprises 2 screenshots, the second one obtained by scrolling horizontally downward.

Domain names SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

There are various factors when choosing a domain name. It is natural to go for a short domain name and is connected to something that is popularly searched for by surfers so that the chances of it being found and visited form search engines (free or organic hits) are better. An example might be camera.com. This is in the hope that surfers (potential customers) are more likely to find camera.com when searching for camera. There are many domain name registrars, but don't try to register that domain name because 99.99999999% that had already been registered by someone, and if it is not already in use, very likely the one who registered it will be trying to sell that popular domain name at a very high price.

Now you can try other domain names and it will be good to do some research first like looking up common and popular key words and try to zero in on some key words related to what you want to put on your website or blog in the domain name. If you want to do that, type "keyword suggestion tool" into the Google search box above, tick the radio button beside WEB and search. You will see a few websites that can help suggest key words for you. But that is hard work.

Help with domain name creation, registration and optimization

Don't like hard work? There is help available. Try Name Stock. They say they can help you find a suitable name (I assume that also includes domain name), register and optimize it using names already indexed by the very popular Google search engine. Read about how NameStock brand creation process.

Don't even want to do that? Let others who have already done the job and have ready-made domains and buy a premium domain name that suit your purpose.

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New Blogger Custom Domain

The New Blogger has recently rolled out its latest feature - custom domain. With custom domain, you can have your own domain name like myblog.com and have your blog hosted with Blogger for free. You may also choose to host your blog with a third party web host or even on your own, but you will have to grapple with various issues like the hassle of publishing your posts via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). A big disadvantage of hosting on your own is that many of the new features of the New Blogger like drag-and-drop Layout, Label List, etc., will not be available to you as you will have to use the old classic Blogger template.

Others who don't use custom domain will have to live with sub-domain like myblog.blogspot.com. Some don't like it because they say the sub-domain does not belong to them, but to Blogger. In addition, some are of the opinion that sub-domain are command less respect from surfers, rather like using a home as an office.

If you want to use custom domain, the first thing you need is to register a suitable domain name. The problem is, the Internet has been with us for quite some time already, and many of the more desirable domain names have probably been already taken. This is where services like www.buydomains.com can come in handy. www.buydomains.com have many domain desirable domain names that you may want to use for your blog. There is a search box into which you can type in keyword/s and search for your desired domain name. They also have Advanced Search to help you narrow down the search.

If you have a domain name which you think may be saleable, you can also put up the domain for sale through www.buydomains.com. You may also start a blog with custom domain (which means that the domain belongs to you, and not to blogger, and you may do whatever you want with it). You take care to choose a desirable domain name with good keywords in the URL, publish posts regularly, get the blog indexed by search engine, and get a high PageRank which will make your domain name more valuable.

You may even join the Google AdSense Program and put contextual ads, search boxes and referral links on your blog and work on it to produce revenue. There may be people who are looking for AdSense ready blogs to buy as then they can start earning straight away rather than starting from scratch.

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Own domain for blog hosted with Blogger: Why and how?

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