Don't Get Your Blog's Custom Domain Name Through Blogger!!!

At least not just yet!

That is exactly what I did.

If you have a blog with Blogger, you simply click on Settings and then click on the Publish tab. For $10 per year, your blog can have its own custom domain name instead of yoursite.blogspot.com.

The other option is to get your custom domain name from a service like godaddy and then follow the instructions to have your new site 'point' to your blog. Novice that I was (am?) I took what I thought was the easy way.

Sounds great, right? It is until you decide maybe you'd like to sell your blog. Then guess what? Not easy.

Here's the info for this site from Whois.com:

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: LEARNTOEARN101.NET
Created on: 15-Apr-08
Expires on: 15-Apr-09
Last Updated on: 15-Apr-08

What is DomainsByProxy? It's a private domain registration site. Instead of my name and address being displayed publically, the DomainsByProxy information is posted.

From their web site:

Your domain is registered in the name of Domains By Proxy® -- so our contact information is made public -- not yours.

But suppose I want to sell? According to the same page as above:

You retain the FULL BENEFITS of domain registration. You can:
cancel, sell, or renew your domain; set-up the name
servers for, and resolve disputes involving, your domain.

OK... Now what?

Transferring Private Domains Away from Domains By Proxy-affiliated Registrars

To transfer a privately-registered domain name away from a Domains By Proxy-affiliated Registrar you need to do the following:

Log in to your Domains By Proxy account and cancel the private registration service for the domain name you wish to transfer.

Log in to your customer account at your Registrar and unlock the domain name. You can then initiate the transfer process.

And? I have an account at DomainsByProxy? And my account ID and password are? Who is the 'affiliated registrar'? Godaddy?

Yes, I'm clueless. I just sent off an email to DomainsByProxy. I'm looking forward to being enlightened.

In the meantime, if you are thinking about registering a custom domain name through Blogger's service, you just might want to hold off until I get some answers.

(The continuing tale..)