How to use Blogger's custom domain feature when Dreamhost is your registrar and your webhost.

Update: I've since learned that you're free to delete and add DNS records if you choose the option for DNS hosting only. Currently, this is the very last option at the bottom of the page. I was having the problem described below because I had chosen DH as my webhost, not just the DNS host. Hope this helps y'all.

I'm posting this because I had a lot of trouble figuring how to move from FTP publishing to using a custom domain on Blogger, and this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere on the internets, and boy, did I look everywhere.

Dreamhost was both my registrar and my webhost for my blog at contraversion.com. I wanted to take advantage of Blogger's custom domain deal because I was tired of re-publishing via FTP all 7 years of my blog every time I tweaked the template or whatever.

To do this, Blogger Help instructs you to go to your registrar and add a CNAME record pointing to "ghs.google.com". In Dreamhost's control panel, you go to Domains > Manage Domains > DNS of your domain. This is where you can add new A or CNAME records.

But, oh! Not so fast. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see a list of non-editable DNS records. You need to email Dreamhost support and explain to them you're moving to Blogger and need the "www" subdomain record deleted so you can add a CNAME record pointing to "ghs.google.com"

You need to do this because the Dreamhost control panel prevents you from adding a duplicate CNAME or A record if one already exists. Dreamhost support, however, is happy to manually delete a non-editable record for you. After they do this, you're free to add a new CNAME record for the "www" subdomain.

One last thing: back out to the "Manage domains" page again and click "Edit" under the "Web Hosting" column. Select the option to add "www."

Now, when anyone goes to "www.contraversion.com" or "contraversion.com," they'll arrive at my blog. I suppose you could also accomplish this by asking Dreamhost to delete the A record for "yourdomain.com", and adding another CNAME record pointing to "ghs.google.com", but I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not. (I know very little about this stuff.)

So, head back to Blogger settings and type in your domain and you should be good to go. I typed in my domain with the "www." just to be on the safe side.

Whew!