How to use Google app engine with my own naked dom

Question

After hours of reading about and experimenting with DNS records I can access my Google app engine app via these URLs:

• myappid.appspot.com
• www.myappid.myowndomain.com

What does not work:

• myowndomain.com
• www.myowndomain.com

I want to be able to serve my app directly off my domain and not a subdomain. I've seen apps that do this. Is there any way to do this without a URL redirect?

Answer 1

Google does not provide an IP for us to set A record. If it would we could use naked domains.

There is another option, by setting A record to foreign web server's IP and that server could make an http redirect from e.g domain.com to www.domain.com (check out GiDNS)

Answer 2

Google does offer naked domain redirection.

• Login to your google apps account and select "manage this domain"
• Navigate to Domain settings
• Within Domain Setings, navigate to Domain names
• There's a link that says "change the A record". Clicking that will give you the destination IPs for the A records you need to create.

Answer 3

[update 2015-09-28] Now Google lets you add custom domains (including naked domains) and setup SSL without the need of Google Apps. For details refer to here: https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/using-custom-domains-and-ssl?hl=en

I just discovered today (as of 2014-04-11) a new custom domain settings page is available from Google Developers Console:

1. Go to https://console.developers.google.com/project 2. Click on your project 3. On the left click "App Engine" 4. Click "Settings"

There you go! You can configure custom domain without the need of Google App account!

Answer 4

I know all these steps and actually the following is the short and fantastic way.

1 - Go to appengine.google.com, open your app

2 - Administration > Versions > Add Domain... (your domain has to be linked to your Google Apps account, follow the steps to do that including the domain verification.)

3 - Go to www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com

4 - Dashboard > your app should be listed here. Click on it.

5 - myappid settings page > Web address > Add new URL

6 - Simply enter www and click Add

7 - Using your domain hosting provider's web interface, add a CNAME for www for your domain and point to ghs.googlehosted.com

8 - Now you have www.mydomain.com linked to your app.

• If you want naked domain, i.e. mydomain.com, use a redirect un your DNS administrator (not in Google Apps) and point it to www.mydomain.com.

Now that I've done that all, I can go to my appengine app successfully using my custom domain. For example http://cic.mx and http://www.cic.mx both take me to my app. But URL changes to -myappid-.appspot.com and I don't want it to happen !

Has anyone solved this issue?

I'm using a php app on the appengine, with a wordpress instance.

Answer 5

You can redirect forward or mask your domain name in godaddy but I don't know about other hosting sites.Have a look on this link

Answer 6

[Update April 2016] This answer is now outdated, custom naked domain mapping is supported, see Lawrence Mok's answer.

I have figured it out!

First off: it is impossible to link something like mydomain.com with your appspot app. This is considered a naked domain, which is not supported by Google App Engine (anymore). Strictly speaking, the answer to my question has to be "impossible". Read on...

All you can do is add subdomains pointing to your app, e.g myappid.mydomain.com. The key to get your top level domain linked to your app is to realize that www is a subdomain like any other!

myappid.mydomain.com is treated exactly the same as www.mydomain.com!

Here are the steps:

1. Go to appengine.google.com, open your app
2. Administration > Versions > Add Domain... (your domain has to be linked to your Google Apps account, follow the steps to do that including the domain verification.)
3. Go to www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com
4. Dashboard > your app should be listed here. Click on it.
5. myappid settings page > Web address > Add new URL
6. Simply enter www and click Add
7. Using your domain hosting provider's web interface, add a CNAME for www for your domain and point to ghs.googlehosted.com

Now you have www.mydomain.com linked to your app.

I wished this would have been more obvious in the documentation...Good luck!