Tutorial: How to Point Your Blogger Domain To Namecheap

Finally! I was able to buy my own domain already. As you can see, my domain name is now www.joysofawifeandmom.com. I'm so happy! 

First of all, I would like to thank my fellow BC Bloggers friends for sharing their ideas and comments in my entry here when I was contemplating about getting my own domain. Thanks so much, guys! :-)

I was all set to buying my domain from GoDaddy. Even found a very easy to follow tutorial on the web. But when I was about to check out my cart, the total charge was a whopping US$20++ for a one year subscription! My gulay! And take note, they're on sale na niyan. I even removed the other extra features para makamura but I still ended up getting US$20++ charge. Huhu. Sad. So, I didn't proceed.

Hostgator charges $15 per domain, expensive too. So, I decided to check out the next best thing, Namecheap. And, they really charged me reasonably!

If you buy your own domain from Namecheap, it comes with the following:

• Free WhoisGuard Protection (Free on the first year of subscription)
• Free Url & Email Forwarding
• Featured DNS Services
• Full Domain Control
• Security Features (Registrar Lock, etc.)
• And a lot more!

I had a hard time finding an easy-to-follow tutorial though, mainly because Google has updated their requirement when setting up your domain. Whenever I search for tutorials, I always end up getting the outdated version. Good thing, I found an updated tutorial here. Kudos to the person who wrote this entry! Thanks for sharing! 

This tutorial is in compliance with Google's requirement of two CNAME records to be added to your domain registrar's DNS setting. In this case, our registrar is Namecheap. 

Source: Blogger Journey

So, with a few tweaking, here's my version of a few simple steps to point your Blogger domain to Namecheap.

1. First, log in to your Blogger Account. 
2. Go to your Blogger Dashboard. Click on Settings. Then click Basic. Under Basic, locate Publishing, then click Add a custom domain.

3. Once you click Add a custom domain, locate the Switch to advanced settings nearby.
 

4. Type in the full domain address that you bought from Namecheap. Include the www. In my case, I typed in www.joysofawifeandmom.com. Then, click Save. You will be prompted with an error message that says "We have not been able to verify your authority to the domain. Error 12.". This is perfectly normal as we have not defined your CNAMES in Namecheap yet. Please take note of the Name, Label or Host field and the Destination, Target or Points to field. You may copy and paste it in Notepad for later use. 

To illustrate: 

• The first CNAME is www and ghs.google.com. This is the same for everyone.
• The second CNAME is the one directly below www and ghs.google.com. These are two alpha-numeric strings (one short and the other is very long with a (dot)com at the end). Be sure to copy these two very carefully and make sure also to include the (dot)com at the end of the second string. Please see this screenshot below for reference. Unlike the first line, these two details are different for every user.

5. Next, let's go to Namecheap. Log in to your Namecheap account. On the left side of your screen, you will see Account Information. Click View under Number of domains in your account.

6. After clicking View, you will be redirected on the main content page of your domain. If you purchased more than one domain, it will all be listed under this page. I purchased two, so in my case, you will see two domains listed, as in the picture below. Click the one that you would like to modify. In this scenario, I clicked on joysofawifeandmom.com.

7. Once you click on your domain, look at the left side of your screen under Host Management. Click on All Host Records.

8. This page is what you will see once you click on All Host Records. 

9. We will now have to populate the fields with the required details. We need 4 A-Records and 2 CNAME records (we already got the two CNAMES from Step 4). 

This is how it will look like after filling up all the details.

So, let's start. Please be careful in entering the details. To give you an idea, above is the screen shot of the Host Records after I entered all the details. The 4 IP Addresses that you see are from Google's Official Help Page.

Let's fill it up one line after the other. 

First line: 

• Under Host Name, it already shows @, you can't change that. 
• Under IP Address/URL, remove the domain that's automatically indicated there and change it to 216.239.38.21. 
• Under Record Type, change it to A(Address). 
• Under TTL, type 1800 if it's not already there. 

Second line: 

• Under Host Name, it already shows www, you can't change that too. 
• Under IP Address/URL, remove whatever's there and change it to ghs.google.com (this is the first CNAME we got from Step 4). 
• So, for the Record Type, choose CNAME(Alias) from the drop down option. 
• Under TTL, type 1800 if it's not already indicated.

Third line: We are now in Sub-Domain Settings. 

• Under Host Name, type in your domain name excluding the www. 
• Under IP Address/URL, type 216.239.32.21.  
• Under Record Type, choose A(Address). 
• Under TTL, type 1800 if it's not already indicated. 

Fourth line: 

• Under Host Name, type in your domain name again excluding the www. 
• Under IP Address/URL, type 216.239.34.21. 
• Under Record Type, choose A(Address). 
• Under TTL, type 1800 if it's not already indicated. 

Fifth line: 

• Under Host Name, type in your domain name again excluding the www. 
• Under IP Address/URL, type 216.239.36.21.  
• Under Record Type, choose A(Address). 
• Under TTL, type 1800 again if it's still not indicated. 

Sixth line: This is where we will need the second CNAME which we got from Step 4. Remember the two alpha-numeric strings? We need those. I suggest, you copy and paste these strings when entering it in the fields so as not to miss any character. So here goes. 

• First, copy the short alpha-numeric string and paste it under Host Name. 
• Next, under IP Address/URL, copy the long alpha-numeric string and paste it there. Be sure to include all the way until the (dot)com at the end. 
• Under Record Type, choose CNAME(Alias). 
• Under TTL, type 1800 again if it's still not there. 

Whew, that's a long one, don't you think? Actually, it's not at all complicated, you just have to fill in everything carefully. So, after entering all these details, you are good to go. Scroll down and look for the Save Changes button. Be sure to save your changes.

10. Double check your settings, just to be sure. This is how it looks like right after you click Save Changes. A prompt that says "Host Records Updated Successfully" will appear.

11. Wait for a minute or two for the changes to be updated. Open a new browser and type in your new domain name including the www. Check what you see on the screen. If you see an error like the screen shot below, then you have successfully set up your Namecheap account. We can proceed to the next step. If the 404 Google Error hasn't appeared yet, wait for a few  more minutes. Try to refresh your browser until you see it. In my case, it took me just around one or two minutes before I saw the error. 

This is how the error looks like.

12. Once you're done with that, let's go back to your Blogger dashboard. Then let's redo Steps 1 to 4.  But this time, after you type in your domain (including the www), you should not see the same error you saw at Step 4. The screen will just go back to Basic Settings page again after you click Save. Under Publishing, you will notice that beside Blog Address, your address is now the domain you got from Namecheap, not your Blogger/Blogspot address anymore. We're almost done! Yey!

13. Now, next step is to redirect your naked domain. Naked domain simply means a domain without the www prefix. We need to do this so that when people type your domain, with or without www, they will still be redirected to your site. 

Under Publishing, click Edit beside your Namecheap domain. 

14. Click the checkbox that says Redirect yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com

15. Check your new web address now. Open a new browser. In my experience, when I typed in my new domain, without the www, the page came out instantly after just around one minute. 

But, when I typed in my domain including the www, it didn't come out instantly. It took me around 5 to 7 minutes before it got updated. Whenever I try to access www.joysofawifeandmom.com, I kept seeing an error page. If you experience the same, don't panic, that's completely normal. It may take a few minutes, some says it takes a day, before all systems get updated, before you can access your webpage using your new domain name. 

Like I said, mine took around 5 to 7 minutes, it was pretty fast! :-)

After these, you're finished. Well done! 

By the way, don't worry about your traffic. If people click on your Blogger/Blogspot free domain, the one with (dot)blogspot(dot)com, they will still be automatically redirected to your new domain. Also, what they will see on your browser's URL field is the new domain name already. Cool, yes? 

I was also very happy that my permalinks were not affected. If you read my previous post here, I was worried that my permalinks will get affected because I read somewhere that the permalinks of a blogger were affected when she tried to point her Blogger/Blogspot domain to GoDaddy. All her permalinks disappeared! Don't know what happened though. 

In my case with Namecheap, all my permalinks were updated with my new domain name! :-)

I'm very happy now that I have my own domain name. I feel more inspired to blog, hihi! 

If you're interested to buying your own domain name in Namecheap, it is very easy. Just create a new account, search for the domain name you want and if it's available, you can buy it using your credit or debit card. By choosing Namecheap as your domain registrar, you are choosing a highly reputable and reliable partner. Namecheap is rated 4.7 out of 5 - Based on 185 reviews for the past 12 months via Google Checkout. It comes with a lot of freebies too!

You can click on the image below if you want to get started.