Google Apps Discussion Group

Often people would like http://www.mydomain.com and http://mydomain.com to point to their website created with GApps Sites. In order to do this, configuration changes will need to be made at your Service Provider. Basically you will be Forwarding http://mydomain.com to http://sites.google.com/a/mydomain.com/sitename/HomeName and Masking the target address with your own domain name. HomeName is often optional and only used if the home page on your site is not the default home page. 

All search engines will still see the full url as http://sites.google.com/a/mydomain.com/sitename/HomeName . Traces of www.mydomain.com forwarding to Google sites will disappear from search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. With Masking enabled and a publically viewable Site, all pages will show http://mydomain.com in a user's browser.

Make sure the GApps site being used for your website is visible to the Public. Copy the url of the home page of your Site - while viewing it in a browser - for later use.

Log into the Domain Manager of your Service Provider. The examples beIow are for GoDaddy and eNom.

If GoDaddy is your service provider:

• On the Domain Manager page, cIick on the link under Forwarding: and enable Forwarding
• Enter the url of the home page of your Site
• Select either 301 or 302.
• CIick on Masking and check Mask Domain. CIick on OK.
• CIick on Total DNS Control and MX Records
• Change or add a CNAME of www so it points to the symbol @
• Add an A record with a Host of @ pointing to 64.202.189.170 and a TTL of 1 hour.
  
• Save the changes and WAIT for up to 48 hours for the changes to propagate to all necessary world-wide servers
• Within the GApps control panel, reset the Custom url for Web Pages to the Default Setting

If eNom is your service provider:

• Add a Host Record with @ as the Host Name, the url of the home page of your Site as the Address, and URL Frame as the Record Type
• Change or add a CNAME of www so it points to the symbol @
• Save the changes and WAIT for up to 48 hours for the changes to propagate to all necessary world-wide servers.
• Within the GApps control panel, go to the dashboard and check for any app that is using www, e.g. Sites or the older Web Pages if you still have it. Click on it and return the URL to its default value. For Sites, remove any mappings using www.

Special Instructions for users who purchased their domain name from Google: 

• Login to your Service provider using the Advanced DNS Settings Link within the GApps Control Panel.
• Delete the A Records pointing to Google Servers (Usually 64.233.179.121, 66.249.81.121, and 72.14.207.121)
• For GoDaddy customers: Add an A record with Host Name: @ Points to: 64.202.189.170 and TTL: 1 hour.

Pointing your domain name to the login page for your Sites:

If you have several sites for your domain you may want your domain URL to go the list of sites where visitors can browse to a specific site they want to view or edit.

• In your registrar's DNS control (for example, see GoDaddy above) change or add a CNAME pointing to ghs.google.com. For host choose something like "sites" or "www". Wait until the change has propagated on the Internet.
• Within the Google Apps Dashboard (control panel) for your domain, select 'Sites' under the Service Settings tab.
• Next to Web Address cIick the "Change URL" link.
• Select the Custom URL option and enter the host name you used for your CNAME above, e.g. "sites" or "www". When you cIick "Continue", you will be asked if you have completed the CNAME steps.

• Changing the site URL for sites in Google Apps (www.mydomain.com points to chosen-site of many)