A New Domain Name – and Going Ad-Free

Until the start of this month, visiting my custom domain https://gavincameron.co.uk would redirect you to this blog and the URL in the browser bar would change to https://gcameronwriting.wordpress.com.

Having learnt a little about domain name server (DNS) settings from recent projects, I wanted to find out whether it was possible to keep gavincameron.co.uk in the browser bar while visitors look at this blog.

In short, that was indeed possible – but other problems started the moment I adjusted the relevant settings.

My email address also has a gavincameron.co.uk suffix and that slowly began to break down. Initially, I could send but not receive, and then no traffic was going in either direction. Meanwhile, I had written and scheduled last week’s entry. As it was edging closer to Tuesday, I was prepared to reset my configuration to restore email service, even if it meant the entry wouldn’t be posted.

I rent the domain from Dreamhost, so I spoke with the helpdesk there. The company has the good sense to insist your primary email address should be one that’s not hosted by them. I was able to use an old Googlemail account that remained unaffected.

In the last helpdesk message, a member of staff told me the DNS settings so I could both use my custom domain at WordPress and access my emails at Dreamhost without one affecting the other. I was away on a trip last week, but I was able to change the settings with my phone browser, so you saw the entry as normal and I finally received all my emails.

In all that excitement, I forgot to mark the ninth birthday of this blog last week. As a belated present from me, you won’t see any adverts here for at least a year because I needed to upgrade from a free subscription to use my own domain.

Until then, I don’t intend to touch any more DNS settings.