Please Update Your Bookmarks

I bought justgottasharethis.info - several years ago, but I haven't really been using this blog or domain for a while.  I don't know where the time has gone, but the last time I posted was around this time last year, when I renewed the domain.  Really?  A whole year?  If I'm not going to use it, I really don't need it. So, I've decided not to renew this year.

For all one or two of you that might read this blog occasionally:

Please update your bookmarks.  The url will be changing to:

http://justgottashare.alwaysbcmom.com

Understanding PageRank

Principles of PageRank (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is not me explaining PageRank.  I still don't really get it.  I'd never even heard of PageRank before I started writing some paid blog posts several years ago.  Then I learned that it was something to be desired, and the more active my blog was and the more other blogs I could get to link to my blog, the higher my PageRank went.

Except that Google doesn't like paid posts and paid links, so they can randomly take away any PageRank a blogger may have earned - which then means none of the advertisers who were willing to pay for posts and links are at all interested in paying for new ones.  In fact, they're all asking to have those same links removed ASAP because Google has also penalized their sites.  Except, of course there's no payment for removing said links, except in rare cases.  Somehow I just have to find the time to remove multiple links, all of them really important.

Anyway, the reason I was thinking of this is that I just renewed this domain.  I was thinking about just dropping it because I don't use it as often as I thought I might, but then I ran this PageRank Checker and found out this page as a PageRank of 2.  Considering I rarely update this blog and don't really do anything with it, that's quite surprising.  On the other hand, my recipe blog bcmom's kitchen has a PageRank of 0.  Zero.  I may not update it as often as I should, but I really do use that blog, and I know there are other blogs linking to it.  And I've never done paid posts there.  So what's up with that?  Yeah, makes no sense to me.

So, I renewed this domain - whether I really need it or not.  At least one of my blogs has a PageRank of some kind, even though it really doesn't seem to matter unless I'm going to sell posts or links - which would then make Google take away any Rank I might have.  Just Because.  Yep, I definitely understand this PageRank thing.  How about you?

Domain Update

It works! It wasn't working yet when I went to bed last night, but I got up this morning, checked to see if it worked yet, and it does! I had to make a change or two to the template because the images weren't loading, so I saved them to my computer and uploaded to a different server. Once I updated the images in my template, everything worked well.

I did end up getting impatient last night because it wasn't working yet, so I started doing a little more reading, and ended up following these instructions instead. Instead of creating a new CNAME record, I just had to edit the 'www' one and have it point to ghs.google.com - and it works. I don't know if the other way would have worked, because I didn't wait to see, but these instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

Then I read this:

With GoDaddy Total DNS Control, you have 2 lists - "A" and "CNAME". The "A" list needs to be empty, and the "CNAME" for the "www" alias needs to be at the top of the "CNAME" list.

So, I deleted the one item in the "A" list - though I really don't understand it, and I did copy it to notepad first so I can put it back if I need to.

Switching to My Own Domain

I recently read an article saying I could buy my own domain, but continue hosting my blog here on Blogspot. By keeping my blog in the same place and letting Google forward everything, I won't lose any of my incoming links, readers, or PageRank. I know that doesn't have anything to do with this blog, because it is brand new. I don't have any links, readers, or PageRank, yet.

But I figured that, if I was going to try the custom domain, I would try it out on a new blog first - before switching an established blog. Besides, now this blog will always have its own domain - provided I did it right. We shall see.

I followed these instructions on How to Use the New Custom Domain Feature for Your Blogspot Blog. Then I followed the instructions to use custom domain on my blog. Now I'm waiting to see if it works. It says it could take a couple days to get everything switched, which means I probably should have followed the first instructions to tell my domain where to point. Then, once it was pointing to the right place, changed my blog, instead of doing it all at once. Because the blog is already pointing to the domain, but the domain hasn't forwarded to the blog yet.

I will be sure to let you know how it turns out.