Changing CNAME and A Records for Blogger Custom Domain

If you bought your first domains to get into the domain aftermarket business, you'll probably want a site to promote and sell them.  The easiest thing to do here is get a free blog.  I chose Blogger.  With Blogger you have the option of freely using your own domain - to look more professional - by changing the publishing settings.  But there are a few more steps involved besides just telling it which name you want to use.  You need to go to your domain registrar and change the CNAME and A records.  A Records are so people won't get an error page when they leave off the "www," and the CNAME is an alias that points to those records.  It will take a few minutes for everything to update, and it may take a few days for the domain to resolve correctly.

In GoDaddy - and this can probably easily translate to other registrars - go to the Domain Manager, select the name you need to change, click on Nameservers, and then select "Set Nameservers."  Check the radio button that says "I have specific nameservers for my domains."  The system automatically populates it with GD's nameservers, which should be NS**.DOMAINCONTROL.COM, but you can change that if you want.  This is for your website's domain, but all domains you set up with a parking company (i.e. those you want to sell) will have to be set up on nameservers like NS1.FASTPARK.NET (NameDrive) and NS1.SEDOPARKING.COM.  They resolve to a parking page where a visitor can click through on any number of related links or, if you've set it up, inquire about buying your domain.

The next two steps are frustrating if you're very new to this.  Blogger's instructions seem clear enough, but, with GoDaddy at least, you may get stuck staring at the screen not knowing where to go.  In the Domain Manager, click on the domain to be changed or the link in the yellow box above (if it's still there) that says "Great news!  The new DNS Manager is live."  If you've clicked on the domain, now look for the "Launch" link in the "DNS Manager" section, which is directly under "Domain Enhancements."  If you clicked on the DNS Manager link, you will see "Standard DNS Dashboard," or something like that.  Then just click "Edit Zone" under the correct domain.

You should now be in the Zone File Editor.  The first two files are A (Host) and CNAME (Alias), and that's all you'll need to get going with Blogger.  The A record will have "@" in the Host field and an IP address in the Points To field.  Change only the IP address to 216.239.32.21 and click "Save Zone File" near the top of the page.  You'll be adding three more addresses with Quick Add: 216.239.34.21, 216.239.36.21, and 216.239.38.21.  Remember to put "@" in the Host field of every one.

And finally we come to the CNAME record.  The one you need to be concerned with is the "www" in the Host field.  Leave the "www" the way it is; I've only had problems trying to put the entire URL in there, which is what all the instructions I ever read told me to do.  The Points To field has "@" in it, but you will change this to ghs.google.com; and again click "Save Zone File."

I don't know what to do about subdomains since I didn't set my sites up that way.  But, after experiencing how GD does things, I would say the system would accept something like "blog" in that field, not the full address, such as "blog.fluidfinances.com."  Sorry, you'll have to experiment with that one yourself.

There, that's it.  You're all done.  Now go work on your content.