Google Data

The most popular request we have had since our launch has been the ability to change site URLs, and we are excited to announce our first set of features in this area. Now Google Apps domain administrators can map public sites hosted on Google Sites to their own domains. Sites can be mapped individually to a specific URL, like http://www.example.com, and as a group under a specific URL, like http://sites.example.com/[name of site].

Map a site to a specific URL

The standard URL of a site in Google Apps currently looks like http://sites.google.com/a/example.com/site-name, but now you can let users access your site at a URL on your domain that is easier to remember. The new location can be your domain home page or any sub-domain in your domain (e.g. http://www.example.com, http://info.example.com, http://wiki.example.com, etc.), and can be set up on the “Web Addresses” tab of the Sites service settings in your Google Apps control panel.

Change the root URL for all sites

If you have several sites, you can also make them automatically accessible at a designated URL on your domain. For example, instead of being at http://sites.google.com/a/example.com/site-name, the administrator can make them available at http://sites.example.com/site-name or at any other sub-domain.

Remember these new features are currently only available for public sites in Google Apps (mapped URLs to private sites will redirect to the standard URL). Stay tuned for more exciting domain mapping news for private sites and sites created under http://sites.google.com/site.

For more details on this topic and specific setup instructions, see our online help center.

While writing this post I learned about RFC 2606, which designates example.com as a domain that can be used for, well, examples. Doesn't that make a lot of sense? I sure thought so.

Posted by Di Wang, Software Engineer