Tutorial: Converting a Blogspot to a .com (Custom Domain)

About a month ago, I fully switched over my blogspot blog to a .com custom domain.  I had actually bought my .com domain off GoDaddy.com when I first started blogging, but simply had the domain forwarding to my blogspot url as I didn't take the time to figure out how to properly publish my blog onto my own domain.  After about two months of blogging, I decided to finally take some time and figure out how to make proper use of my domain name and have my blogspot blog published to my domain directly.  While the process wasn't hard, I did not find that it was well documented.  I'm writing up the steps I took in the hopes that it will help those of you out there interested in doing the same! 

Note that the pictures below correspond to what you need to do if you have a GoDaddy.com account, but the DNS Settings (steps 4 and 5) described apply to all accounts.

Click images to enlarge.

1. Log onto your custom domain service provider -- GoDaddy.com, in my case.  Select your domain.
   
   
2. Select "More Settings" in the next screen that appears.
   
   
3. Click the link to launch the DNS Manager.
   
   
4. A record changes:  You'll want to delete all existing A (Host) entries and replace it with the blogspot entries below exactly as it appears.  Note that if you do not delete the existing A record entries, you will see an error if you try to access your domain with the preceding 'www' (i.e. http://cuteandlittle.com will not redirect to http://www.cuteandlittle.com correctly!).
   
   
5. CNAME changes:  You will only need to modify the "www" host so that it points to "ghs.google.com".
   
   
6.  GoDaddy.com account changes typically take about an hour to take effect, but can take up to 24 hours. Once the changes take effect, then you'll need to change the publishing settings in your Blogspot account to publish to your custom domain.  Also make sure to check the box to have the url without the preceding "www" also redirect to the full url.  If everything is configured correctly in GoDaddy.com, you will see the "Congratulations" message!
   
   
7. That's it!! You can continue to use Blogger to create and edit your posts and they will be published now to your own custom domain.  Existing posts will also point correctly to the new custom domain so you do not have to worry about losing any content or comments.  Simple right?  ^_^

Note that GoDaddy.com runs frequent promotions -- currently a .com domain is only $7.49 with code cjcreb695.  Also make sure to use Mr. Rebates and you'll also get a 12% rebate!! 

Hope this helps!  Let me know if you have any questions!

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