In our previous tip, we told you how to setup a free Tumblr blog and discussed the basics of managing and running a blog on Tumblr on the sub-domain level (e.g yoursite.tumblr.com). Anyone can register a free Tumblr blog at a sub-domain level, without having to buy a domain name or install a web server. But there are a couple of advantages of using your own custom domain with Tumblr, when compared to its free sub-domain version.
A custom domain name offers strong branding, as a www.yoursite.com address looks very good in your email signature, online profiles, Facebook, Twitter and so on. Common users have a high feeling of trust with these top level domain names, because the address reflects that you are serious with your blog and have taken the plunge to register a custom domain for it.
In this tutorial, we will learn how to setup a Tumblr blog with your custom domain name.
1. First, go to any domain registration company and buy your own domain name. I prefer using GoDaddy for buying all my domains, they are a reputable domain registrar and offer a lot of discount coupons on business as well as personal domain names.
2. Once you have bought your domain name, you have to point your domain’s DNS to Tumblr’s web server. You can always create a sub-domain on your existing site and point that sub-domain to Tumblr or create a sub-folder and use the address of the sub-folder as the home page of your Tumblr blog. To keep things simple, I will use the root directory of my site.
3. Login to your domain administration page and find “Manage your domain”. In Godaddy’s domain administration panel, click the “My Products” link available at the “My Account” drop-down menu, as shown below:
4. Click your domain name and this should open the DNS management panel along which contains some important settings such as nameserver details, domain information and contact email address.
5. Find the section “DNS manager” and click “Launch”. In some domain management panels, this link might be labelled as “Edit” or “Open”. In short, you have to open your domain’s DNS manager page and add a custom DNS record that will point to Tumblr’s web server.
6. In the “DNS manager” page, click “Add a DNS record” and enter the following IP address in the address field:
72.32.231.8
~Amit banerjee
Tags: Tumblr
Hello Amit,
I’ve followed your advice above and registered a domain but run into difficulty at Step 10 – first my URL when signing up is rejected – it seems one’s URL has to be a “tumblr.com” sub-domain and I get the error message that the URL must contain only letters and numbers when I enter “mysite.info” in the URL space. Then when I comply with the “tumblr.com” subdomain, I’m not seeing what you talk about at Step 11 in terms of the “+” button to set up a new blog.
Thank u very much .