Not All Technical Support is Created Equally…
I remember standing in the train station in Madrid, and since I had taken Spanish in school, it was my turn to communicate, and figure out which train my husband and I needed to take.
My husband is a seasoned traveller, plus speaks German, and he is quite accomplished at negotiating all of those little challenges you have in a foreign land. In Madrid, I had the reins, and the pressure was on.
The train station was under construction, and everything that I could read in Spanish didn’t actually apply. All of the frustrated locals were lined up with me to ask the train director questions, and with each step forward, I prepared in my head the proper verb tenses and vocabulary to the best of my ability to present my question, and get an answer we needed.
Problem was, the verbs and vocabulary I expected back from the director didn’t come, and were beyond my comprehension, and all of those foot tapping locals, rolling their eyes at me to get a move on didn’t help. You can only ask someone to repeat something so many times.
Ultimately, we made it to our destination with quite an adventure–getting on the wrong train, and fumbling through even more awkward Spanish conversations. I clearly was the sub par support technician of the two of us.
My Madrid tale came to mind after struggling recently with the technical support people from my web hosting service. Even though we are conversing in English, there is vocabulary and jargon that is just downright foreign to me. That tech guy may as well be speaking Spanish, and just like being lost in a foreign place, you have to trust complete strangers speaking an unknown tongue to guide you.
I’m sure many of you breeze through all things in computerland, but I thought I could help those of you in my shoes by telling you what not to do from my recent mistakes–and in layman’s terms…
If you have a blogspot, and want to purchase and use a custom domain name for your site, so that when you are on that site, you look at the address bar, and see your domain name there, do not try to accomplish this by forwarding that name to your blogspot or forwarding with masking to your blogspot.
Forwarding only allows you to type in your domain, and then it switches to the blogspot. All of your tracking, traffic recording, etc. will only register on that blogspot, not your custom domain.
If you try forwarding with masking, your domain name will appear in your address bar instead of the blogspot, but the masking can also mask all links on your site. So that if you click on a sponsor ad, even though you land on that sponsor’s site, it reads your domain name in the address bar.
Unfortunately, the forwarding and then forwarding with masking was the technical advice I received, after explaining how I explained above what I wanted. After all, what is the point of buying a domain if it’s not really there to see, and it seemed like everyone else had this going on. So why was this so difficult in my case?
I’m sure my inexperience in computerland is first to blame, but like my performance in Madrid as our guide, not all technical support is created equally.
It’s not safe to assume that just because you’re talking to a technical person, means you’re going to get proper advice. After all, techy #1 was completely wrong. Techy #2 also completely wrong. Techy #3 was partially correct, but incomplete in her instructions, and techy #4 was partially correct to tell me I needed “something” from Google that would go “somewhere” on my DNS management, but incorrect to say that techy
#3 was completely wrong.
Luckily, I was guided to the proper “somewhere” place in my DNS management by techy
#3 to be able to get the “something” from Google, and finally get the job done! Now, I’ll run through the steps to help all of you interested.
Here’s what you need to do to see your custom domain in your address bar:
*Also please see my updated post about not clicking a Go Daddy domain.
*From your settings tab in your blogspot dashboard,
Go to “Basic”.
click on “publishing”.
*You’ll see “switch to custom domain”…click.
*You’ll see, “Already own a custom domain?”…click on “advanced settings”.
*Then click on “set up instructions”.
*Google will ask you if you have a Go Daddy domain*
*If you do, DO NOT CLICK THAT YOU DO.*
*If you click for Go Daddy, you will not get to the instructions below that you need.*
*Choose Host my blog on a url I already own.
*Choose the www.com version if that is what you have.
*You will now see step by step instructions from Google.
*Google wants you to put “ghs.google.com” in your DNS management domain zone file.
*This will be different for everyone, but you need to get into your hosting account, and get to your custom domain’s zone file editor.
*You then find under CNAME (Alias)… “www”
*Next to “www” will be “@”
*Delete “@” and type in “ghs.google.com” there.
*Save your file.
*Now go to A (Host) in your Zone File and add a record 4 times with the 4 numbers Google gave you from their instructions.
*Be sure to enter in for example “mommyladyclub.com” and not “www.mommyladyclub.com” in the name of the record each time.
*Then copy and paste each of the 4 Google numbers.
If you don’t do this step, you will only be found if someone leaves off the “www.” from your domain.
*Now wait an hour.
*Log in to your blogspot dashboard, and go to “settings” and then “publishing” again. Now you can enter in your custom domain and save, and that’s it!
If you get an error message, first just try clearing your cache.
If that doesn’t do it, you may just have some errors on what you entered in.
From this point, if something is still wrong, I can’t help anymore, but I hope I’ve given you a little guidance, and made up for my technically challenged Madrid performance here, and provided you with some fairly descent technical support!
I now have to start over with our new domain, but I can’t be too upset about it. After all, learning from mistakes is always a good thing. Betina and I would love it though, if you felt like re-writing your Alexa review, or doing a review of our site if you haven’t yet?
(I actually found an old photo of myself on that trip to Spain. This was in Barcelona, but I am wearing my still to be replaced and ever so elusive pink jeans! Seeing this photo, and my triple performance scarf for cold days, or warm belt wearing and easy airport security, reminds me that I need to do a multi-function fashion for travel, packing for various climates post. Stay tuned!)
~Courtney
Business Insider: Not All Technical Support is Created Equally
As I was reading your wonderful post, it made me think how many times students try to translate a phrase or word but find discrepancies in the context. You actually need a human being to give you context. Sure, there are some words that are easily translated but if you don’t know the different meanings, it’s pointless.
So glad to see you talk about this. BTW, I think your Spain pic is fabulous. It reminds me of the ‘plazas’ (parks) in Arg. where everyone gathers for a break. Hope you had a wonderful time.
Wishing you the best,
Barbara
Español para Niños (Spanish for Kids)
Yes Barbara,
That is the toughest part about learning a language. Getting beyond just translating each word. You have to just hear it. Then speaking it after hearing it is another level. I really loved our trip to Spain! I’m glad you caught this post:)
Courtney
Thanks for this info. I currently have a blogspot blog and plan on buying my own domain. Following you back from the hop
http://www.theordinaryaunt.blogspot.com
Belinda,
I’m glad I can offer it! I know there will be a lot of blogging friends wanting to do this, and when you get to Google on the instructions, it’s just not that clear.
Courtney
I’ve thought about buying my own domain and even almost switched to WordPress. But, I just don’t have the time to deal with any of it right now! Glad you finally got it figured out. Here’s to quick recovery of all of your stats!
I have a couple WordPress sites, that I’d like to get going, but they sit a lot, because I really struggle with using it. It’s very user unfriendly compared to Blogger. I read that Google likes WordPress sites better, but then found out that was false. If you apply your custom domain to Blogger, and like using it, and the way it looks like I do, I would stick with Blogger, but I’ll keep trying on my WP ones. With WP, your hosting company already hosts it, so you don’t have to go through any of the steps above to see your custom domain.
Ha! Oh, Courtney, I was soooo feeling your pain in both situations! And why I’ve decided to keep my good ol’ blogspot domain. For my biz web host, I’ll keep them too – Pappashop – as they are so fab when I call and can talk to me in my lax web language!
What a mess!! I’m glad you got it figured out finally. I can’t believe all the incorrect advice you were given by the experts.
I’ll definitely write another review for you. I spend a lot of time here and have the Alexa toolbar installed, so that will help, too =) Anything else I can do to help, just let me know and I will!!!
Ahh, thank you Nan and Christina! Christina, you are so sweet to offer another review:) You’re awesome!
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