Mapping custom domain

Problems with mapping custom domain (liveincaregivers.org) for one of my Google site subdomains (caregivers.goodmen.info)

Objective: I have purchased Google Apps for Work plan along with a domain hosted by by eNom - goodmen.info. I have created several subdomains such as

caregivers.goodmen.info

us.goodmen.info

uk.goodmen.info

au.goodmen.info etc.

and mapped all those subdomains through eNom DNS control panel so that users can access them in that format. In that respect everything worked fine.

However I wanted to use my custom domain (liveincaregivers.org) hosted by Canadian company called FUNIO and connect it to my Google site subdomain caregivers.goodmen.info

I carefully read instructions provided by Google, I read several other articles and watched almost dozen of videos on the same topic and they did not help at all.

Moreover, they caused more frustration like in one of those instructions articles it says: "Go to Webmaster Tools web site and add that new web site (in my case liveincaregivers.org) as a new property and verify ownership of the domain. I did exactly that. Then copy META tag and copy it to the box on your Google subdomain web site (in my case caregivers.goodmen.info) however when I wanted to generate META tag it directed me to create some kind of container for META tags. Totally unexpected.

Anyways, I contacted Google help, they created ticket, 24 hours later nothing was solved (I just got an e-mail telling me ticket was transferred to someone else), so I had to figure it out myself (as much and as far as I could).

Finally I managed to map www.liveincaregivers.org but I am still in the dark as far as naked domain liveincaregivers.org is concerned. I still have to figure out that one.

However this is how I managed to map www.liveincaregivers.org to caregivers.goodmen.info:

STEP 1

Open your account where your domain is hosted (in my case FUNIO) so that you can enter/modify information there easily.

Open DNS control panel for the domain you want to connect to Google sites subdomain (in my case it was liveincaregivers.org).

Go to Webmaster tools (I suggest that you use the same log in credentials for that as for the main access to Google Apps for Work, in my case for goodmen.info user name and password. I am not 100% sure this is very important but I did it in any case.

Add new property, just naked domain, in my case I added liveincaregivers.org. For verification of ownership I chose DNS so I got code which I put in the TXT field:

After I clicked on Verify, my domain was verified by Webmaster Tools web site.

STEP 2

After that I also modified CNAME record for the domain liveincaregivers.org:

STEP 3

Then I did something which was mentioned absolutely nowhere on Google web site - first I went to Google Apps for Work main control panel and clicked on Domains:

after that I clicked on Add/remove domains

then I clicked on ADD A DOMAIN OR DOMAIN ALIAS:

then I had to choose between these two options - I chose Add another domain because I do not care about e-mail or users for that particular situation. Then I clicked on CONTINUE AND VERIFY DOMAIN OWNERSHIP:

After that my domain was automatically verified (probably because of the code Webmaster Tools web site generated and I pasted it into TXT field). I did not want to set up Google MX because as I said I do not want to use this domain for e-mail communication so I clicked on Skip Google MX set up:

and after that chose I USE ANOTHER MAIL SERVER:

Finally my new domain name was added on the list next to the primary domain goodmen.info (however next to the domain goodmen.info I had option to set up redirecting of naked domain to www subdomain of the same domain (goodmen.info redirecting to www.goodmen.info) however I did not have that option for my newly added domain - it was pretty plain:

STEP 4

After that I went to one of several subdomains/web sites I already created. For this situation I wanted to use the one called Caregivers:

I clicked on it to open it then I clicked on the small gear in the top right corner and chose option Manage site:

This opened main site settings so I clicked on Map this site:

When the new window opened I mapped new web address, I called this subdomain caregivers.goodmen.info:

Before my web site /a/goodmen.info/caregivers/ could be accessed by typing into browser caregivers.goodmen.info I had to log into eNom account (from Google Apps control panel, in the Domains section) and change CNAME record there: I had to add caregivers as subdomain and ghs.googlehosted.com as the web address:

Sorry I forgot to take a screenshot when I did that. It is pretty straight forward.

STEP 5

Now is the time to map liveincaregivers.org to caregivers.goodmen.info.

I went back to my web site /a/goodmen.info/caregivers/ as I described in STEP 4 but this time I clicked on See All Mappings which brought up this screen:

So I chose Web Address Mapping and checked caregivers.goodmen.info then clicked on ADD NEW WEB ADDRESS:

which brought me to this screen:

so interestingly this time I could map web addresses on two separate domains: goodmen.info and on newly added domain liveincaregivers.org so I did exactly that, I chose

liveincaregivers.org and for web address chose www as shown above. Then I clicked ADD MAPPING and this screen popped up:

Instructing me to log into eNom account and make the changes. Now, I do not really understand why would I go to eNom to do that since my domain is hosted by FUNIO so I did not do anything at eNom instead I just clicked I'VE COMPLETED THESE STEPS and voila! new domain showed up on the list:

I tried www.liveincaregivers.org and web site opened! Success!

Then I tried naked domain liveincaregivers.org and nothing happened, I got this page:

then I read instructions on how to set up redirecting for goodmen.info (principal domain) so I made changes on A/AAAA record on my FUNIO account for liveincaregivers.org:

but I did not get much further - this time the error message was from Google so I assume FUNIO somehow sent traffic to Google but Google did not know what to do with it:

and this is where I got stuck. I will try again tomorrow.

Redirection of the naked domain liveincaregivers.org to www.liveincaregivers.org was accomplished through FUNIO Forwarding function:

It took 3-4 hours for DNS information to propagate.

Tip: PSD and PNG files for customizing the site header are here

Comments