December 1, 2010

I describe here how Google Apps may be integrated with a WordPress.com website to provide personalised email addresses: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it rather than This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

1. Add a registered domain to your blog
This first step allows the public to reach your WordPress.com website/blog via, for example, http://joedoe.com (or http://www.joedoe.com) rather than http://joedoe.wordpress.com.

I won’t go into this step in detail, as it’s fairly well documented on WordPress.com. If you haven’t already got this working, open your blog dashboard and go to the Upgrades page. If you already own your domain name you’ll need to purchase a domain mapping upgrade and then redirect your name servers (follow these instructions). Otherwise, you may purchase your domain name through WordPress.com, provided that it ends in “.com”, “.net”, or “.org”.

2. Sign up for Google Apps
Head across to the free Google Apps signup page and click on the Get Started button. On the following page, enter your domain name (e.g. joedoe.com) under “I want to use an existing domain name”. Select a sensible login for your account, something like This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Once you’ve created your Google Apps account and have logged in, you’ll see a “Verify domain ownership” link on the left hand side of the Google Apps webpage. Don’t bother with that link: strangely enough, none of the verification methods provided (even adding DNS TXT records) work with WordPress.com.

3. Verify domain ownership via WordPress.com
Go to the Domains page within your blog dashboard and click on the “Edit DNS” link of the domain that you wish to verify (e.g. joedoe.com). Within the resulting Edit DNS page, scroll down to the Google Apps section and click on the “verification code” link. If you’re still logged into Google Apps, you’ll find yourself at a Google Apps verification page. From the dropdown box on that page, select “Change your CNAME record”. You will be provided with a unique identifier such as “googleffffffff81cb7aa1”. This is your verification code.

Back at the Edit DNS page, enter your verification code within the input box in the Google Apps section. Click on the “Generate DNS records” button. This will add several lines of code to the text box in the “Custom DNS Records” section at the top of the Edit DNS page. Click the “Save DNS records” button.

4. Test the integration
Log into an email account other than the one you created in Google Apps. Send a test email to the main email address associated with your Google Apps account (e.g. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). Then log into your Google Apps account and look for that email in your inbox. If it’s there, you should be done. Otherwise, wait some hours and look again: DNS changes often take a while to percolate their way across the internet.