So let’s say that I have a lot of cool things to tell the world, and to do so I’ve decided to start a blog. Now, I’m just positive that everyone on planet earth will want to read what I have to say, and being a narcissist I know that using Blogger or the like just isn’t going to cut it. Doesn’t have the right look
Therefore, I have an idea fitting a genius such as myself. I write my blog using a commercially available blogging site. I lease a .com URL and link the blog to that URL. So I advertise my weekly wisdom as Lanciasinfinitewisdom.com, and when the masses go to type in that URL, they get redirected to my blog.
How do I, someone with limited computer knowledge, accomplish this? I want to create a weekly blog, but have it linked from another URL, not the blahblahblah.blogspot.com.
I’ve done some googling on URL redirecting, and the instructions literally read like code (they are code!). Is there an easy way for a noob to do this? Or is there a better way of doing a blog that doesn’t use a blogging service such as blogger?
URL redirection doesn’t really have anything to do with what you want to set up. Services like Blogger already support using custom domains for your blog. Just register your domain and follow the instructions there.
If you actually want to host your own site with your own installation of blogging software, that’s a lot more involved.
Most domain hosting services will do this as part of the domain registration package.
I do exactly this - I have my own domain, but since it costs money to host it at the registrar, I simply redirect www.mydomain.com to www.IhaveFreeHositngSomewhereElse.com.
The registrar (Domain Registry Of America) offers this for free (or at least included in the price of registration), and it’s a simple fill-in-the-blank process to set it up.
If you hire a hosting service, lease a domain name and install whatever blogging software you want ( it’s very easy or the host will install it if you wish ) — such as WordPress.org ( not WordPress.com, which is much the same as Blogger, but not owned by Google yet ), either you set a few switches in the control panel the host offers, or you do it the manual way by adding redirection lines in an .htaccess file — note the dot before which shows it to be a hidden file in Unix, no dot.xxx after as in .exe. or .txt.
Personally, having acquired .org and .net under the tld racket, I redirected them to .com in both the control panel and the .htaccess file.
This is very simple. You get a sample .htaccess with the software; add lines or modify it in a very basic text editor ( not anything like Word: this applies to all stuff you upload: Office software adds extra formatting ); and upload it to the root directory of your host’s space with FTP.
You can find sample lines of 301 code for redirection anywhere and substitute what you need.
.htaccess works with Apache servers, but most hosts run on that.
If you go with Blogger or WordPress.com, presumably you can ask them to add redirects. If you just want them to substitute another URL for the one they gave, they will charge you something.
I have never written a line of code, and have neither interest nor ability in programming.