Have you set up a custom domain using the Blogger platform? Or, are you going to convert your Blogger Blogspot blog to your own domain using Blogger? If either of those questions is a “yes” for you, then you may want to check this out in your Blogger dashboard. The redirect I’m referring to here is an option that you have within your Blogger dashboard.

Once you’ve converted a Blogspot blog over to your own custom domain, you’ll want to make sure you have selected the correct option in your Blogger dashboard, for Blogger to redirect your blog. AND, you’ll want to ensure that your actions match up to the option you selected! What am I referring to? First off, it’s always nice to learn from someone’s mistake, so you don’t make the same one! I’m sharing this post with you today as a result from a goof I discovered on one of my own blogs I converted to a custom domain, utilizing the Blogger platform. You now have the opportunity to learn from my error! :)

First, lets take a look at what I’m referring to in your Blogger dashboard, and please note that you won’t see this option within your Blogger dashboard until either you are in the process of converting your Blogspot blog over to Blogger, or you have already finished the conversion. If you have already converted to a custom domain using Blogger, it’s not too late to change your option. Ok, let’s get started! From your Blogger dashboard, click on the “settings” link for the blog you have converted. Then click on the tab labeled “Publishing”, and then take a look just beneath the “Advanced Settings” label. Ok, this is what you’ll see in regards to the Blogger redirect option you have to choose from. The image is from my dashboard for one of my blogs:

advanced-settings-in-blogger-11Just to clarify, whichever option you select for the redirect, as shown in the image, Blogger will redirect your old Blogspot blog to your new blog, and that’s not the redirect I’m speaking of in this post. I’m referring to the option you choose as shown in the image at the right.

Assuming you have selected the same option as shown to the right which says, “Redirect yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com.” then this tip is for you! If a person clicks through to your blog from the domain, yourdomain.com, then Blogger will redirect it to your home page to www.yourdomain.com. However, this is where one needs to stop and think about their blog post permalinks, which are the individual blog post urls. Here’s where you’ll learn from my error, so pay close attention as I get to my main point here!

If you have created any links from one blog post to another blog post within your blog, you must make sure you created those permalinks using the www. in front of your domain name!!! Why? Because if you have the individual blog post permalinks created without the www in front of your domain, then Blogger will automatically redirect your visitor that clicks on those links to your blog home page, rather than to the specific blog post permalink!!! This was an error I made with some of my internal links for my blog posts, and didn’t realize until months later that my visitors were getting redirected to my home page rather than to a specific blog post! :(

One last pointer here for you is a tool that you can use to check the redirect of a url. If you have any concerns about a correct redirect for a url, make use of this handy url redirect checker! I hope this tip is of use to you, and that you are able to learn from MY mistake, rather than making the same mistake yourself!

Happy blogging! :)