Categories

TechTip: Configuring Google Blogger custom domain on Squarespace

Here are the settings you need to use if you want to get your Squarespace domain to work as a custom domain on your Google Blogger blog. 

  1. In Blogger, navigate to your blog settings and enter your domain name in the "Custom Domain" option under "Publishing" (you have to use a subdomain, so use the "www." prefix if you want this to be your "top level" domain, or use "blog." or whatever you desire):



  2. If you're using the top level "www." prefix for your blog, don't forget to select the "Redirect domain" option as well:



  3. Google now offers free SSL certificates for Blogger blogs, so go ahead an enable this as well (you will need to make sure to disable the Squarespace SSL support or your blog won't be available, we'll cover this in later steps):


  4. Now, move on to the Squarespace dashboard, click on your domain and select "Manage Domain Settings".

  5. Under "Advanced Settings", click on "Edit" next to "Nameservers Settings" and make sure that "Use Squarespace nameservers" is selected


  6. Now, click on "Edit DNS" in the top-right corner, and make sure you set your custom DNS records as follows (you may need to delete the default DNS settings that are already in there from Squarespace):


    I am not including the IP addresses above as text, in case they change in the future, instead I'll point you to the Google Help article that contains the current IP addresses to use: Set up a custom domain. The only important bit is to make sure that you enter "@" in the "Host" field (and you do actually have to enter this, if you just leave it with the "@" that gets displayed by Squarespace by default, it errors out when trying to save the record).

  7. Now, as mentioned before, let's turn off the Squarespace SSL/HSTS setting, to let Blogger handle this for your blog - go back to the Domain Dashboard for this domain, and click "SSL" in the left-hand navigation menu, then select "Insecure" under the options that come up:

  8. One more thing, which I don't think is "required" but is a good practice and shouldn't have any adverse impact on functionality of your blog - on the Domain Dashboard for this domain, under "Advanced Settings", click on "Edit" next to "DNSSEC Settings" and toggle "DNS Security Extensions" to on:

That should be it. Give DNS records a few minutes to propagate and try accessing your domain, it should open your blog and automatically redirect to the secure https:// version of the URL (and if you're using the "www." prefix for your domain, it should automatically redirect to it).