Before Changing Your Custom Domain Published Blog, To Another Custom Domain, Do Some Research

As custom domain publishing becomes more popular, and becomes simply one more feature to add to your Blogger blog, some blog owners decide that the domain that they are using, right now, is not to their liking. Fortunately, with a Blogger blog, the process of changing your domain to another is not complicated - hoping that you have the right tools, and make the right decisions.

• Publish the blog back to BlogSpot.
• Use "Buy a domain" (if possible), and publish the blog to the new domain (as available).

All that being possible, there is a third step which many blog owners manage to overlook - until long after they have completed Step #2.

Since one of the features of custom domain publishing is to increase page rank / reputation / visibility by publishing the blog to a non BlogSpot URL, the vast majority of all Blogger blog owners, when changing the blog from one custom domain to another, will do well to plan a third step.

• Forward the current domain to the new published URL.

Too many times we see the plaintive cry in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

I just bought a new domain for my blog - but the previous URL is now 404!

This is a common complaint, for some blog owners who do not think the process through, before starting the domain swap.

For too many blog owners, the third step is not, at all, obvious.

But how do I forward the domain?

Too many custom domain owners don't know how to use the Domain Manager wizard provided by the registrar - or (in the case of "Buy a domain" customers) have not even setup the Google Apps domain manager desktop account, which provides access to the Enom or GoDaddy Domain Manager.

For these blog owners - and any blog owners contemplating a domain change - I'll add a fourth step to the process.

• Do some basic research - find out how to access, and how to use, the Domain Manager wizard.

And do this new First Step before you need to report

I just bought a new domain for my blog - but the previous URL - and all my search engine hits - are now 404!

and preferably before starting

• Publish the blog back to BlogSpot.
• Use "Buy a domain" (if possible), and publish the blog to the new domain.

After you properly complete the above procedures, don't expect to see an immediate transfer of page rank, reputation, and visibility to the new published URL. You need to plan ahead, and consider the issues, when changing domains - just as you would plan the rename of the blog, and as you would plan the custom domain migration. You'll find that changing the custom domain published URL involves issues from both of the latter changes.

>> Top