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Google Blogger makes it easy to put a blog at a custom top-level domain or custom subdomain, such as:

www.example.com
blog.example.com

The setup involves creating a CNAME pointing to:

ghs.google.com

How do you setup a blog to be on a custom domain with a folder name in the URL path?

Example blog home:

www.example.com/blog

A CNAME won't work because that's at the DNS level not the HTTP level. A redirect will alter the URL in the user's browser, so that won't do either.

Is there a simple way to do this? (Note: My registrar is Namecheap and my site is running Apache/2.2.16 with cPanel on a unix server at Umbra Hosting.)

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Dem Pilafian
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2 Answers2

1

Here are 2 ways to do it.

Method #1: Using a "meta" tag

You could just stick a index.html file at the top of www.example.com that redirects to www.example.com/blog. This index.html file would make use of the "meta" tags that are available in the <head> tag:

For example

<html>
<head>
  <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://www.example.com/blog/">
  <title>www.example.com blog</title>
</head>

<body>
....
</body>
</html>

You can read more about them here.

NOTE: This method requires that you only want www.example.com/index.html to redirect to www.example.com/blog/.

Method #2: Using an Apache rewrite

#-- blog.example.com --#
<VirtualHost *:80>
  UseCanonicalName Off
  RewriteEngine On

  ServerName blog.example.com

  # blog 
  RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://www.example.com/blog/$1 [L,R=301]
</VirtualHost>

Method #3: Using an Apache Reverse Proxy

If you're attempting to take traffic in on say URL http://www.example.com/blog/ but your actual blog is at http://mysuperblog.blogger.com/, then another option would be to reverse proxy the mysuperblog.blogger.com behind an Apache instance tasked with sitting out in front.

#-- www.example.com/blog --#
<VirtualHost *:80>
  UseCanonicalName Off
  RewriteEngine On

  ServerName www.example.com

  # /blog -> /blog/
  RewriteRule ^/blog$ /blog/ [R]

  # blog
  ProxyPass /blog http://mysuperblog.blogger.com
  ProxyPassReverse /blog http://mysuperblog.blogger.com
</VirtualHost>

NOTE: In order to make use of Apache's reverse proxy functionality make sure that you enable the mod_proxy module.

slm
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    The blog should end up on `/blog`, but the main site (not the blog) still needs to be at the root level. Additionally, a meta refresh would not cause the actual blog to appear at `/blog`. – Dem Pilafian Apr 14 '13 at 01:20
  • OK, you did not mention any of that in the question, you might want to update the question to reflect your more specific needs. – slm Apr 14 '13 at 01:22
  • The updated Method #2 seems a bit closer as it does not redirect the website root. Like Method #1, however, it looks like it points the browser to `/blog` but there won't be anything there (nonetheless, I gave the VirtualHost a try... encountered a 500 server error). What would cause the blog (hosted on Google Blogger) to show up at `/blog`? – Dem Pilafian Apr 22 '13 at 03:49
  • I think I understand what you're looking for finally. You want to present the site as www.example.com/blog even though it might be getting served from just blah.blogger.com (or whatever), correct? – slm Apr 22 '13 at 04:11
  • Yes, I want to know how to setup a blog to be on a custom domain with a folder name in the URL path. For example: `www.example.com/blog` – Dem Pilafian May 03 '13 at 21:05
0

Sadly, the answer appears to be no.

Blogger Settings Blogger Settings

It looks like there is no way to "setup a blog to be on a custom domain with a folder name in the URL path", such as:

www.example.com/blog
Dem Pilafian
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