The complexities of long term commitment: Moving to a private domain

Ok, so whenever I check into the URL, GA picks it up. But when I got my friend who is living abroad to visit the URL,  it's not picking him up in real-time

Your friend may be using a jscript blocker program, firewall or a ad blocker ok dont worry if you see yourself online your GA is perfect

No need to copy it twice Bro.  It will show you online till the cookie or bot is wiped out from GA server.  They are designed that way, IDK why but that will be no problem to you.  Hope your query is solved now

I was just wondering if it affects the Average Time Spent stat, since the GA showed me as online for a good five minutes after I left the site. Anyway thanks a lot for your help and seemingly infinite patience 

Welcome.  There is GA code blocker extension available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera or you can disable Jscript on your browser.  

SM Here is the link to the GA blocker extension http://www.igorware.com/extensions/block-yourself-from-analytics

Or you can use the official blocker from Google - https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout - This one blocks GA on all websites. The above one can be used to block GA on specific websites.

Ranjith what does that GA blocker do?

GA Blocker will stop tracking your own visits. Similar to the 'Don't track my pageviews' option in Blogger stats. 

SM why do want to keep both, the old ones useless.  GA will only tag the current one unless you make a separate property for old one.

Ok, so I'll simply go to the source code and remove the GA code? That's it?

Yep just check and match the GA code of your custom domain  before deleting the blogger one 

Ok, to generate the new code, do I go to Property Settings in GA and change the URL from Blogger to custom domain?

Its better if you go via WMT.  Go in WMT and in front of your custom domain you will see a button called manage site.  Under it you will see GA properties, click on it and attached it WMT go to GA and then copy the JS script in your template :)

I went to WMT, clicked on Manage site. It shows my existing Analytics Web Property is not linked to any site in my Webmaster tools account. Do I link that? Or do I click on Create GA Account, doing which takes me to my existing GA.

Yes link the property against your custom domain 

Done. Anything else I have to do?

Now add the jscript from GA into a html widget in blogger

How do I generate the code? And won't it be the same code I have already added, with the same UID?

http://awesomescreenshot.com/0441sd6597 copy the jscript and put it in html widget in blogger

Ok, I found the code, but like I said, it has the original Blogger domain's tracking ID, and I already have the same code in the template source code from when I originally set up the GA account.

It will same property unless you change the property yourself.  Dont worry copy that and go to GA.  Open the realtime view, open the blogspot in another browser and see you appear in GA.  If you appear you are done 

Just to confirm- you want me to copy it again? The same code twice? 

Also, I did the real time thing and I'm seeing myself when I visit through a different browser. But it continues showing me even after I have closed the browser.

Ok, so someone (me) has gotten a new domain name. Will I have to do some tech-fiddling with my Google Analytics? I added GA long before I got my domain name, and right now I'm seeing a lot of difference between Blogger stats and GA stats. I know it's normal, but sometimes GA stats seem to be outright wring, like showing 0 hits on a day when people have even left a comment on a blog.

So do I have to make some changes to Google Analytics to reflect the domain change?

I think you will have to ( not very sure ) because the GA settings  have a field named URL so if that URL is different from the actual page on which the script gets executed, the views will not count.

SM add the GA code from WMT dashboard.  In front of the domain name you will see manage site button, In that you will get GA property for the domain.  Add that to your template and you would be fine 

Never heard of GA, so looked it up. It's showing this-

Site: http://www.staggland.com/

Linked Property: This site is not linked to any web property in your Google Analytics account.

That was your prob  Link it now and you will get the correct readings of visitors 

Vijay SM was asking about visitors count on GA differing from the stats in Blogger. Linking webmaster tools to GA shouldn't have any effect.

SM, at times, there may be a delay in GA stats, so that might be causing the visitors count for the current date to differ. Also, the starting time of teh day for GA and Blogger is different. That too might be a problem. Others times, it might just be some error. For me too, at times, the stats show zero visitors for the past day or the day before it. If I see the stats again after a few hours, they are normal.

GA stats are more accurate than Blogger stats. 

Ranjith SM had not linked his custom domain to GA so he will not get a correct reading ever.  He has to link it through WMT to the custom domain to get GA results which he can then test through realtime by going online through a different browser.

Linking blog to GA : You mean adding the GA code ( corresponding to the new domain ) to his blog after he moved to the new domain? Then yes, he should do it.

Linking GA to Webmasters : Not needed! 

Ranjith, mine is not a temporary poblem, I have been observing false numbers ever since I moved to a private domain. And the GA code I added was for the original domain name before I made the move to .com. Should I do the whole thing again with the new name as well? And do I still leave the old code corresponding to the old Blogger domain there?

Remove the old code from your blogger blog and add the new code ( corresponding to the .com version in your GA ) .

Is it possible to keep both? A lot of visitors still come through the old address, especially Indiblogger where I have to continue using the old address.

Even if someone visits your blog by typing your blogspot url, I think those visits will not be recorded ( I'm not too sure ) with your old code because the url specified in your GA code ( .blogspot.com ) and the url on which it is executed ( .com ) are not be the same. If this is not true, imagine what evil minds can do. Other people can insert your GA code in their blogs and your GA account will be recording the visits of some other website. 

And going by this logic, if the GA code you currently have in your blog belongs to the GA account of your .blogspot.com adddress, then the viists shown in your GA stats should be zero for not just one day but for all days! But I don't understand why it is not the case.

To keep things simple, remove any GA code you have in your blog, create a new property in your GA account with the .com address and add that code to your blog! 

Now, after searching on the net, I am confused about what I told is correct!  Simply ignore it and to be on the safe side, do what I said in my previous reply. Also, don't delete your .blogspot.com profile in your GA account as you may find that data useful later on. 

Ranjith if someone wants he/she can always keep two properties in GA one for custom and one for blogspot as far as I know.  

ok, after a bit of searching, I came to know that the url specified in the GA properties doesn't matter and in fact, you can use the same GA tracking code on different websites. You can create a filter with hostname as the parameter to see the stats corresponding to a particular website. ( This does not stop the evil minds from trying to manipulate the GA data of other people because the hostname can be set programmatically if needed )

Ranjith if someone wants he/she can always keep two properties in GA one for custom and one for blogspot as far as I know.  

Yes Yes. You can create as many properties as you want for a single website. 

Ok, everything is working perfectly. Can someone please tell me how to change the URL on indiblogger?

Let the old blogspot domain remain on indi and contact support here >http://www.indiblogger.in/contact/

Raise a ticket telling them you now have a custom domain.  They will move it and delete your blogger one 

You can do one of the following two things :

1. Add your url as a new blog. After they approve it, delete the old one from IB.
2. Open a support ticket and ask the IndiTeam to change it.

Vijay, I am 51 seconds slower than you. 

And there is also a Redirect Type option- 301 and 302. Which one should I pick?

Use 301

301 is permannet redirect - So PR gets passed 

302 is temporary 

Do I enter www.mydomain.com or just mydomain.com? And how is this different from what Ranjith suggested, because what Ranjith said is also working. And should I undo what Ranjith suggested?

No if that is working let it remain.  IF both www and naked domains are working it wont be a problem SM but i dont think the naked domain is working, it is leading to godaddy page.  Check on some other browser 

You're right it's not working. So which 1 do I enter- with www or without www.

forward it to staggland.com without masking and permanent

Forward To- http://staggland.com

Redirect- 301 (Permanent)

Type- Forward Only

This is under Domain tab, I have done nothing under Subdomain tab. When I save it, under Forwarding it still shows Domain- Off and Subdomain- 0 subdomains forwarded.

Refresh the godaddy page and you will see it as on 

Actually it was opening on Chrome and Firefox using Ranjith's method, but not on IE. On IE it is still showing Godaddy page!

Nope sorry, working perfectly. Thanks again Vijay :D, I owe you.

Oh damn I spoke too soon. Cleared the cache on all 3 browsers and tried again. Not working on Internet Explorer without www 

SM dont redirect it on Blogger settings, forward it in godaddy cpanel as I have said earlier.  It should work just fine

I unchecked redirect from Blogger settings. Now I'm not getting it on any browser.

SM redirect blogger settings to www.staggland.com and then forward it from godaddy cpanel to naked domain.  Do it one at a time and wait for 15 minutes.  

The blogger redirect is working and www.staggland.com is opening. the forwarding has not been done check that out

Ok, Blogger settings are already set to www.staggland.com

Unchecked blogger setting "Redirect staggland.com to www.staggland.com"

By naked domain I assume you mean without www.

Forwarding  

Domain: http://staggland.com(forward only)  

Manage  

Subdomain: 0 subdomains forwarded  

Manage

@Vijay- Under Forwarding it says off. And also 0 subdomains forwarded.

yep 'on' it and point it to the domain or naked domain as the case may be 

for masking uncheck (dont mask)

All these things were not there when I had set up a custom domains for my blog. ( Or did I forget them?  )

Hi guys, the name finally points to the blog. I guess the redirect from the old blogspot address will take 1 day to kick-in. Now 1 problem I'm facing is- if I enter the name without www, I'm getting an error, and that too after I updated the A records with those 4 IP addresses. Can someone tell me where I'm going wrong?

Settings > Basic > Publishing > Blog Address > Edit > Check the box 'Redirect xyz.com to www.xyz.com' > Save 

Lol the answers are so simple I feel like a moron for asking the questions. Thanks a lot Ranjith.

No Ranjith it is for redirects

SM go to the godaddy cpanel and look for forwarding under forwarding point it to the domain you want to most probably www.yourdomain.com  dont check the masking request.  That should do it 

It happens CK. Once I asked on the forum 'How to disable feed' and found the option myself just seconds after creating the thread. 

Ranjith its SM not CK

I bought my domain. A huge THANK YOU to Vijay Prabhu for patiently putting up with my often retarded questions and for getting me a sweet discount.

you are welcome SM

congrats SM.

Dont thank me yet. I still have to do all that CName stuff.

Ok, I'm buying a domain now. I'm getting a .COM domain registration for mydomainname. com for Rs. 499 and additionally a "Private Domain Registration" for rs. 431. I dont remember checking the last option but it is somehow appearing checked at the last screen. Additionally there is an unchecked box for "Certify my domain". Can anyone help me out with this?

you should come to indichat SM

Purnendu subdomains are seen as separate entity.  You control what you want to feed the search engines for eg. I made my test site unvisible to search engines. 

Ok I have a question on subdomains. If I create subdomains for my main domain, will their SEO eat into my main site's SEO or will Google treat all of them as a single entity ?

I think Google mostly sees subdomains as different sites. 

See this and this one. 

Staggmann if you are online visit here https://www.namecheap.com/promos/exclusive-promo-0-98-domain-wedfcv.aspx

you will get the domain for as low as 0.98 per year 

Be careful while selecting the domain name. Its like a property. In the event your plan doesnt workout or for monetary reasons you decide to sell website or domain, good domain name can fetch you quite a decent sum (1000s of dollars). Choose wisely and logically.

.com still rules if you can get a good one.

Ok, so here's what I can grasp from all this-

The level of customization I am looking for (FB comments, menu tabs etc) can be got on Blogger too. Sites can be hosted freely or paid, but freely is apparently safer because its not easy to hack those servers. On the other hand, paid hosting can give me complete freedom with regards to content (something I should keep in mind given the sort of content I write) but at the cost of weaker security.

To purchase a domain, ideal site would be Godaddy and I'll have to do is redirect it to my Blog, for which Blogger has internal settings. I am looking for a dot com name so will have to pay anything between 350 to 500 bucks.

Now my major apprehension- if it is freehosting, is it true that I don't own the stuff I write? Isn't that a huge loophole that I should be worried about? How do others react to this situation? 

Special thanks to Ranjith, Vishnu and Cyber Kid for their helpful tech gyaan, and hoping for more gyaan.

 if it is freehosting Is it true that I don't own the stuff I write?

Not at all. You have the right on all your creations ( written work, art etc ) by default. The same holds true for your blog's contents also. Vijay was saying that as Blogger has control over your content, they can take down your site at any time if you violate their TOS or to follow government order. Don't think too much about it. Just keep a copy of your articles on your computer or back up your blog frequently. ( Settings > Other > Blog Tools > Export Blog ) 

It's Vijay, not Vishnu. 

I still maintain that the free blogger hosting has no holds barred. You can do whatever you want, and I don't think any issues with the hacking part. Though, there are hundreds of those groups who hack and deface sites, most of these hacks, are a result of weak passwords giving easy way to the admin account using a bruteforce attack. Some other hacking techniques include SQL injection that can be carried over by experienced hackers, as it requires making use of weaknesses of our programming techniques akso known as exploits. And BTW, your free blogger hosting can also be hacked, the only thing that could keep a check and possibly stop is the Google Sign In precautions, so, you should always keep you google (gmail) account updated with the latest mobile number and a recovery email.

As for private domain name, there is one more easier way, i.e. purchase it from google (blogger dashboard). This way, you won't have to mess around with the CNAME and DNS records (I've read this over the internet), but, I can't say how much can you get a domain for from blogger, as I haven't purchased mine from blogger.

As for Domain Names: Here are a few offers from GoDaddy: PS: These are not affiliate links and I don't be getting any benefit from any of these links. I'm posting these because I've found these links.

.com Domains at 109 only (This one's ~5 months old, the landing page is working, but don't know whether you'll still get it in that much): http://in.godaddy.com/deals2/?gclid=CK_zi8aZ9LUCFQd76wodjTQA0w&isc=gofbcin06&currencytype=INR&ef_id=UTRdrwAAAQY-wqEK:20130311080240:s

25% off on Domain Names (Got this as an offer from Godaddy on my email, a day before yesterday): http://in.godaddy.com/?isc=HPFBFE25&fbiOfferUID=F211A05F-77CB-42BC-9305-506CB0216FBA&offer_id=59643&offid=59643&ci=76231

SM you forgot my name 

Sorry Vijay, my bad. I guess people here only use initials for a reason.

Moving to your private domain involves purchasing domain name (costs 200-500 rs per yr and web hosting charges from 0-10 $ per month) After purchasing above stuff, u need to change DNS records and point to the servers of hosting site (not needed if both are from same site).

Blogger as a webhost has an advantage of low cost (only domain charges) and good speed. But lack of customization and need for coding know how for serious customizations are big disadvantages. Only certain domain extensions like .com, .net, .org are allowed on blogger so beware while buying domain name. Domain name is like a land plot on internet so its value depends on its length, easy remembrance etc. Domain names consisting popular or easy to remember words are hard to find with these extensions. 

On wordpress (wordpress.org), you have the advantage of easy customization with plugins, availability of plenty of services (free and paid). But it costs a lot (domain cost +web hosting cost rom 2-10 $ a month + paid themes and plugins if you need very high quality stuff in readymade form). A basic website with multiple options and any domain name and extension is easy to setup on wordpress.

Moving to private domain only makes sense if you are in for long term or have a professional requirement, costs are prohibitive  To minimize wordpress cost you can try free web hosting.

A small correction - Now you can use any domain extension with blogger.

Removed

@Ranjith: Thanks for your comment about difference between Wordpress.com and wordpress.org. I always held that you get to learn from other's blogs as well as forums. I didn't knew that wordpress supported free blog hosting on their platform.

Anyways, as for the custom domain names, I feel it's not much of a hassle. Atleast for blogs on blogger. All you have to do is purchase a domain name from any of the registrars like godaddy and bigrock (I'll suggest stay away from bigrock because of their pathetic customer service), and then assigning that domain name to your blog by visiting the blogger dashboard > Settings > Basic and Publishing. Also blogger has extensive help available to set these up in the correct manner, like updating the DNS records in the Control Panel of your domain name provider. This link helps you out setting up a blog on a custom domain. https://support.google.com/blogger/troubleshooter/1233381?hl=en#ts=1234251,1734115.

As far as Stagg Mann's concern of enhancements like adding image based site name, or logo, or header slideshows, or menus, it's still available in Blogger. All you have to do is to get your hands somewhat dirty with some coding atleast in HTML. You can google around for whatever you want, and it's there. All you have to do is find the correct thing you need, copy the code and use it properly. You can make changes to your blogger template by navigating to Blogger Dashboard > Template and Customize (If you want to use inbuilt settings) or Edit HTML if you need more bells and whistles. As far as hosting certain scripts are concerned, you have many alernatives. The latest I started working upon was a Google Site (sites.google.com) where you can upload almost any kind of file, and use a reference or a link to that file from there. I'm using Google Sites to use some CSS and JQuery scripts I'm using on my blog for that cool looking slideshow and that menu on my blog.

The Internet is full of reasons to opt a custom domain. Just type in benefits of using a custom domain on blogger.

The biggest benefit I see is that it's your online identity. Once you've started a blog, which you plan to make big, you've got to act fast, if you'd like to save your online presence, otherwise people are fast enough to take your brand name, and reap the benefits out of your hard work, once you're somewhat popular. This applies to Social Networking Sites too. Infact, I moved on to a custom domain within 15 days of starting my blog, and since then, I have been doing all things related to SEO and other promotion with that domain name. As far as prices of domain names are concerned, you can get one for as low as around Rs. 100 to as high as in lacs of rupees, but usually a .com domain costs ~350 to 500. Mine was for Rs. 379.

"All you have to do is to get your hands somewhat dirty with some coding atleast in HTML."

If only it was that easy for technologically disabled people like me Couple of months back, I just wanted to change the background of my blog on blogger. I had spent 4 hours for doing that unsuccessfully.

That was as easy as changing your phone's wallpaper and is available in the Templates > Customize >Background. All you need to do is just some search and lookout for getting things done.

And atleast a blogger who has stayed for as long as 6 months can't be called technologically diasbled. The thing is one doesn't want to know how to do it. If you're managing a blog on your own, you can't count yourself as technologically disabled.

CyberKID, you are saying that because you don't know how much I sweat to keep the blog the way I can manage it. I want to add plethora of plug-ins but I am not doing so because I simply don't know how. Also, I don't think they would do more than give me a headache in the future. Hence, I would still say I am technologically disabled  So I keep it simple and just write.

@ Pankti There are two ways of doing things - the easy way and the hard way. CK mentioned the easy way. You probably tried the hard way by experimenting with the code. 

Ranjith, do you think I am that crazy?  Just ask AV how easy it was supposed to be and what happened. He was trying to help me but after 4 hours, I was good and ready to give it up forever.  And I did.

@ Pankti: I hope you know how to google . If you know that, other things become just easy, though, you still can't expect to spend less time doing such things, but, you can definitely get things done.

Just for some help: Have you ever tried looking at the HTML code of the post? Try taking a look at that and with some trial and error, you can actually learn how to make that post much more customized than blogger lets us do. Have you ever tried composing a document on MS word and pasting in Blogger? You can actually retain the formatting you've done in MS word, and that same formatting, will appear in your blog post.

I too am not aware of too much HTML, CSS, Javascript, and JQuery, but admit that I've done somewhat programming (mainly in Microsoft Visual Basic and associated platforms including VB.NET and VBA), but, I still can implement those things (HTML, CSS, JQuery and Javascript) on my blog, with somewhat trial and error. I've implemented that JQuery and CSS based slideshow as a header in my blog (mind you all the pics used in that slideshow are grown and clicked by me), though it's working on Google Chrome and Firefox, I'm trying to get it work on MSIE as well. In the last two days, I've implemented that menu (that's properly working on Google Chrome only) I'm testing to get it corrected on firefox and MSIE (Internet Explorer). I'm working on some more items including a downloads page that would allow visitors to download the images of flowers that I've grown over a period of time and clicked pictures of with my cellphone.

So, in my opinion, knowing things don't matter much than having an intention to get them done. I'm relatively new to blogging, and thus unaware of blogger platform, which does things quite differently from plain HTML, Javascript and other such things, still, I'm doing it.

Poor AV 

Now, explain what crazy thing you did for it to take 4 hours. 

Great CK.

Ranjith, I had a pic that I wanted to keep in the background. But blogger wasn't accepting it due to the size issues. I tried to change it to the acceptable size in 10 different ways, with the help of AV. But to no avail. At last, I gave up and just selected the pre-existing look. Am still not happy about it. But I am living with it.

Pankti, send me the picture. I'll see if I can do it. 

One problem I see with self hosting is eventually they get hacked. I find all these protecting against hacking, viruses, trojans worms whatever a big hassle. Blogger blog on the other hand is just like a simple e-mail account or Facebook account. It is safe and secure as long as you keep a nice strong password.