How to Start from Scratch Building a website for your domain.

1. Register a domain of your choice for example at GoDaddy.

2. Register a free email address associated with that domain name by going to Gsuite.google.com.  \  Go to Start Free Trial / Just Me
   Type in mydomain.com and password. Create email address such as sales@mydomain.com and pw  Sign in to activate.  Google will contact GoDaddy to activate your account.

3. To set up website for mydomain.com, go to Sites.Google.com

Primary Domain

The first thing you want to do is to redirect your root domain such as http://mydomain.com to your google sites.  A point of clarification, Google calls the “root” domain as the “naked” domain.

Assign a domain as a custom URL on a personal Google Site  - new Google Sites  YouTube Demo

Assigning a custom URL know how. See Steegle.

You need to turn on your Google Search in your permission in your Google Admin (admin.google.com) first.

In your Admin panel ( https://admin.google.com/) click on /Domains/  Manage domain/  Add a domain. Use naked domain such as mydomain.com  Then click on “Redirect your naked domain.”

Choose http://www.mydomain.com as the desired web address to direct the naked domain request.

When you click on Continue you will be given instructions on how to change the A-record in your domain host usually the place where your registered your domain.

For example if your domain host is GoDaddy, after you login to your account, click on “My Account” (bottom of page)/Domains/Launch.  Then select mydomain.com/”DNS Zone File”/Edit.

Under A(Host) @, change the Point to:

216.239.32.21

216.239.34.21

216.239.36.21

216.239.38.21

Web Address Mapping

How to make http://sites.google......appear as www.mydomain.com on the URL address bar.

1. On the Admin page, click on Google Apps/Sites/”Access settings”/”Change URL”/”Change URLs for all domain services”

2. In “Manage your custom URLs” select custom URLs for mail, calendar, docs, sites.

3. Login to your domain host.  As above, click on “My Account” (bottom of page)/Domains/Launch.
   Then select mydomain.com/”DNS Zone File”/Edit

4. In your Admin/”Manage your custom URLs” follow the instructions on how to change CNAME record
   
   

The original Google Site Help is here.  The following updated link gives you good options for customising your web address.

Routing your emails via Google Apps

Connection to email server is managed by the MX record (mail exchange record).  A description of what an MX record is available here at Wikipedia.  

A more detail description on how to handle MX records on Google apps is given here at Google’s website.  

The instruction on how to change MX record for Google apps is here. 

This address is already being used

If you encounter this error message while trying to set up the Web Address Mapping even though it did not appear on the Web Address list, the reason is you have used the subdomain such as www.mydomain.com in your URL Web Address Mapping during the initial set up.

It is rather complicated as to how to reset it to the default setting.  Here is how to navigate there:

cpanel/Settings/Sites/General/Change URL(Web Address)/Change URLS for all domain services

Direct Link is this https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/mydomain.com/CustomUrl

Make sure the Web Pages URL is selected for the “default” option and not the “custom” option

How to create copy of a site

Sign in as administrator to your Google account

Go to sites.google.com

Select the site you want to make a copy

Click on “More option icon” (spoked wheel in the top right corner)

Manage Site

Copy this site

Landing Page - Default page when you visit this site

I normally use the copy as the archived page and make changes to the original for the new page.  This way the root url such as www.mydomain.com will lead to the same page where as the archived copy has a different URL which is assigned during creation of the copy.

I normally create an Under Construction Page

Edit SideBar

Sites/More/Edit Site Layout/SideBar - Click on Edit icon

Adjusting Line Spacing and Font Colors

In edit mode of the webpage select [HTML] then make changes like below.  You need to have a modicum knowledge of HTML to do this.

Example <span style="background-color:transparent;line-height:150%">

For changing font colors see http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_font_color.asp

For changing line spacing see  here.

How to re-arrange your page sequence or hide a page.

By default the pages are arranged in alphabetical order.  

You can turn this off by removing the checkmark from “Automatically organize my navigation” (More/Edit Site Layout/Edit Navigation Gadget). 

You have to add the individual page you want to be visible on the sidebar 

Use the up/down arrows to arrange your sequence.

The original Google documentation on how to configure your sidebar and navigation gadget is here.

How to create a website.

1. Go to sites.google.com and login 

2. Click on [CREATE]

3. [Browse the gallery for more]

4. [Business collaboration]

5. Select [Company Website]

6. Name your site:  Surgical Frontiers LLC

7. Note: In Site location,  you can change the name of the path from “surgical_frontiers_llc” to something easier to remember say “surgicalfrontiers”

8. You can leave out More options for now.

9. Click on [CREATE] (top left)

How to delete a site you have just created.

1. Go to sites.google.com and login

2. Select the site you want to delete.

3. Open the “More action menu” (wheel icon in top right)

4. Select [Manage Site] then halfway down the page select [Delete this Site]

Only owners have the ability to delete sites. As the owner, you can visit the URL and recover your site within 30 days after deletion.

How to edit a webpage.

1. Go to sites.google.com and login

2. Click on Edit (pencil icon) to start editing

3. Save when done

Changing ISP

This is a good article on how to ensure your Google Sites continue to function properly when you change your ISP.  It will explain when changing your ISP what steps are necessary for your Apps and Sites to continue functioning properly.