Mapping a Custom Domain to Google Sites

Earlier this year, I moved my domain (mguhlin.org) from GoDaddy to Tierra.net, my favorite domain registrar. The experience was marked by an hour of hair-pulling, keeping a tight handle on my temper, and wondering, why the heck couldn’t this process be easier? Of course, the real problem is that help is scattered across multiple Google Support pages–think of that cheerfully helpful neighbor that is maddening because he offers advice that isn’t specific to your problem or who buries it in a pile of helpful suggestions, and you’ll know the frustration I refer to–and it’s not obvious. And, it differs for different domain registrars.

Why Verify?

If you are the person who signed up your business for Google Apps that makes you the Google Apps Administrator. You need to verify that you own your business domain, such as your-business.com, before you can use Google Apps services, including Gmail. This ensures that no one else can use services or send email that appears to come from your business. Verifying your domain is the first step to setting up Google Apps for your business.
Source: GoogleSupport

The Problem
Google Sites needed to VERIFY that my new domain name–www.tceamg.org–is one that I own.

As you can see, the image above shows what success looks like. To get there, I had to modify the TXT entry on Tierra.net account. Here are the steps I followed:

My Approach to the Solution
Step 1 – Get verification code from Google by adding the TXT record by first going to this site, but replacing the mywebsiteaddress with your’s (www.supermanflies.net):

https://www.google.com/webmasters/verification/verification?siteUrl=http://mywebsiteaddress

This is what that looks like:

Copy and paste the TXT record (google-site-verification=longstringofvalues) then go to your domain registrar:

What had caused me to stumble was that I didn’t know what to type in the “Host” box. This chart helped me figure that out and in the end, it was quite simple–an @ symbol was used for domain verification. The only thing that worked in the chart below is the first row (highlighted)…

The first two attempts involved putting in “www” in the HOST box (step 1 above), but that didn’t work. What was needed was that @ symbol rather than anything else. 

Next time, I hope these notes will save someone (or maybe me) some time!!

Shout Out: I’d like to thank Virgil Kirk for knocking his head against the screen trying to figure this out as well yesterday. He and I spent about 20 minutes on it yesterday, and I’d say I spent about 2 hours on it. Never again! I hope these notes will save time.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure