Make google’s domains point to blogger and a google sites, using a normal gmail account, while redirecting the root domain to the classic www. subdomain. This article is not mean for GSuite accounts.
Recently, after searching the depths of the web… I’ve noticed that there is little information on how to successfully setup a google domains with both google’s blogger and blogspot. This lead me to spend some time fiddling with my domains dns info, and surprisingly, I managed to make it all work.
In this tutorial, I will use the subdomain blog.dnaatwork.com for blogger and www.dnaatwork.com for google sites. I will also redirect the root naked domain https://dnaatwork.com to https://www.dnaatwork.com. All without using a third party service for a A-record ip redirect.
In general, my domains will be configured like this:
| dnaatwork.com | → | https://www.dnaatwork.com |
| www.dnaatwork.com | → | https://www.dnaatwork.com |
| http://dnaatwork.com | → | https://www.dnaatwork.com |
| https://www.dnaatwork.com | → | Google’s Server IPs |
| blog.dnaatwork.com | → | https://blog.dnaatwork.com |
| https://blog.dnaatwork.com | → | Google’s Server IPs |
Although google recommends three different dns setups (blogger, site and naked root), non seem to be able to combine all three, and each load to fail one or another site. This is why it is best to skip google’s setup recommendations.
Google’s Domains DNS Setup
Synthetic Records
| @ | .dnaatwork.com | → | https://www.dnaatwork.com |
- Redirect Type: Temporary redirect (302)
- Path Type: Forward path
- SSL Type: Enable SSL
Custom Resource Records
| Name | Type | TTL | DATA |
|---|---|---|---|
| www | CNAME | 1h | ghs.google.com |
| blog | CNAME | 1h | ghs.google.com |
Setup
The synthetic record points the naked domain to the subdomain. In my case, anyone who visits http://dnaatwork.com will be redirected to https://www.dnaatwork.com.
The redirect type simply lets users know that a CNAME or Naked Domain has changed. In an analogy, the temporary redirect (302) tells the user that the url they are requesting has changed. The permanent redirect (301) tells users that the requested url has been changed forever.
| URL | Result |
|---|---|
| dnaatwork.com | error page |
| www.dnaatwork.com | page loads |
The forward path option will redirect the domain to the www. version while redirecting the pages too.
| ON/OFF | URL | Redirect |
|---|---|---|
| ON | dnaatwork.com/home | www.dnaatwork.com/home |
| OFF | dnaatwork.com/home | 404 Error |
The SSL option issues an ssl certifies issued by google, which is recommended. In layman terms, makes www.dnaatwork.com, load as https://www.dnaatwork.com.
The custom records differ from google’s official tutorials. Where blogger points to ghs.google.com and google sites to ghs.googlehosted.com. And so far, this setup seems to have not worked for me. What has worked is using ghs.google.com.
Also note, a unique blogger CNAME must also be added,
Final Setup
With google sites, once you add a custom URL, this process may take up a few hours, this is due to the SSL certificate being generated. If in doubt, run the SSL lab test to confirm your site is up. This will load a bunch of certifies issued by google Sometimes the certificate on computers fails to update.
With blogger, once you add a custom url (whichever way you choose), the whole process will usually take no more than 30 minutes. Also, when setting up the custom URL – enable HTTPS Availability and Redirect (as recommended).
