How to Add Custom Domain in Blogger – Namecheap Domain Link to Blogspot Hosting

How to use a custom domain name for blogger? How do you link a domain you bought from Namecheap to use the free hosting services of Blogger.com or blogspot? What are the steps?

This guide walks you through the process in setting up a Namecheap domain to use Blogger.com hosting service.

It’s easy, just follow this simple resource with screenshots provided by iSensey. You can enlarge screenshots guides on this post by clicking the picture.

First Phase: Set-up a New Blog on Blogger.com

If you already have a website running on blogspot or blogger.com – you can skip this section. Go straight to Step 3.

Step 1: If this is the first time you will create a “blogspot website”, you need to have a Google account. Sign-up to any of Google’s products, easiest would be to create a new Gmail account.

Step 2: Once you have a Gmail account, go to www.blogger.com.

Step 3: Login using your GMAIL account credentials (or any other Google account credentials), which means enter your username and password. This will direct you to the Terms and Conditions of Blogger.com. Accept it by clicking “I Agree”. This will then open to a page where you can create a new blog.

Step 4: Click on “New Blog”. Enter the blog title that you want, then the web address “websitename.blogspot.com” that you want.  If your chosen website name is taken, enter a new one until the system accepts your chosen name. Click on “Create Blog”.

Step 5: The dashboard of your NEW BLOG will display. Click “SETTINGS.”

Step 6: The “Basic Settings” will display. Under your blogspot website name, you can see this line “+Setup a 3^rd party URL for your blog.” Click it.

Step 7: The 3^rd Party Domain Settings page will display. Enter the custom domain name you own that you want to connect to your blogspot website. In our sample, the domain name is www.supertutor.xyz, this custom domain was bought from NAMECHEAP.

If you click “Save”, this error will display “We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 14.”. The error will persist until you completely and successfully set-up your custom domain name to use the Blogger Host Records.

The next phase is the linking process Domain Registrar >> Your Domain Name >> Blogger.com Hosting.

Second Phase: Set-up your Namecheap domain name to use Blogger.com as its host.

This guide is for a domain bought from Namecheap that we want to connect to a blogspot website. The hosting that we will use is the FREE one provided by Blogger.com

Step 1: Login to your Namecheap account.

Step 2: Search the domain list and select the Namecheap domain that you want to connect to Blogger. Click on “Manage”.

Step 3: After clicking the Manage link, the domain settings will show up. Scroll down to the portion that says “Nameservers”. Make sure that the option selected here is “Namecheap basic dns”.  If settings are okay, on the upper right section, click on “Advanced DNS”.

**If you have just selected Namecheap Basic DNS, wait for about 5 minutes before clicking “Advanced DNS”.

Step 4:  When the “Advanced DNS” page load, you can now see the Host Records. Make a NEW record for CNAME by clicking “Add New Record” like in our guide screenshot.

Step 5:  Host Records options will load, select ‘CNAME Record’ from the dropdown menu.

Step 6: You can now enter Blogger.com CNAME record. Go back to your blogspot blog settings to see the host records that you should add. Copy + paste the data in the correct field. Then click on the green check symbol to save the new settings.

Then click again “Add a New Record” so you can add the second host name that you got from Blogger. Save the new settings by clicking the green check mark.

You now have the 2 CNAME records required by Google’s Blogger.com. Now, you need to create the 4 “A Record” required by Namecheap.

Step 7: Add the 4 A Record needed by Namecheap. Same process but this time instead of choosing “CNAME”, you will choose the option “A Record”.

The format is “A Record” -> “@”  -> IP Address (provided by Namecheap)

Do this 3 more times so you complete the 4 A Records required by Namecheap to link your custom domain to blogspot website.

The IP addresses are the following:  216.239.32.21, 216.239.34.21, 216.239.36.21 and 216.239.38.21.

Step 8: So now you have a total of 6 records: 2 CNAME from Google Blogspot + 4 A Records from Namecheap.

WAIT FOR about 30 minutes for the new settings to propagate. After waiting, go back to your blogspot settings, and click “SAVE”. For a guide, please see last screenshot provided on Phase One of this tutorial.

Third Phase: Connecting your bare domain name to blospot website by redirecting.

This is the last phase in linking a custom domain to blogger particularly a domain registered through Namecheap.

If all settings in Phase 2 are correctly added, after you click on ‘SAVE’ on blogspot dashboard setting for “3rd party host”, this new page will display:

So you don’t lose traffic, make sure that your bare domain redirects to your “www” version.  Bare domain means naked domain wherein there is no “www” prefix to domain name as in “supertutor.xyz”.

How to do this? Just click “Edit” to make sure that your bare domain redirects to “www”, and check the option that says ‘redirect…”. Please follow the screenshot guide.

That’s it! You can now type into your web browser your personal domain name then your blogspot website will load!  Also, if a reader will type without the “www”, your website will still load because you have properly made redirection of your naked domain to the pne with “www”.

After this, the next thing to focus on is making the best impression for your website to your target audience. Change the layout, update the design of your blog, use a new Blogger theme etc., and of course, write and publish interesting content that your readers will love, so they come back for more!

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