It seems official Google websites have outgrown their domain name home. Their Google Webmaster Central blog announced the switch on the 8th of March and was the first to lead the migration to their new domain name home, googleblog.com.
In 2004, just over a year after Google acquired Pyra Labs, the birth place of Blogger, Google gave Blogger a huge face lift, gave it lots of fancy functions, and then began launching a series of its own official blogs – all using the blogspot.com name. Twelve years later and Google has built an empire, a blog for each part of it, and some. Every country has its own Google blog. Every Google product has its own blog. Then there’s a whole network of companies that Google owns and they blog about everything from the news to renewable energy. So, with all those blogs, and many others throwing Google’s name around and also using the blogspot.com domain, it’s become difficult to know for sure which ones are official Google blogs.
Confused? That’s what Google thought and why they’re migrating them.
Google makes so many changes, releases updates, changes algorithms and rules, so when the news broke about moving their websites everybody screamed why? Google said, “To help people recognise when they’re reading an official blog from Google.” Ah, it does make sense. But, one gets nervous with things like this. Some changes haven’t been so good for website owners. However, Google says, “The previous address will redirect to the new domain, so your bookmarks and links will continue to work.” And the bad news? “Unfortunately, as with a custom domain change in Blogger, the Google+ comments on the blogs have been reset.” Other good news is that previous advice on Google+, about RSS feeds not migrating, soon changed, it now looks like they are redirecting fine.
It won’t happen overnight.
Google Trends Analyst, John Mueller, said, “The changes will roll out to all of Google’s blogs over time.” Indeed, to move an empire of blogs will take time, and there’s a few jokes already about Google testing its own advice about migrating its websites. So far, it looks like some of the major blogs have made a smooth transition. We knew about Webmaster Central, the first to move from Blogspot to googleblog.com, and other brands like Chrome and Commerce have also moved. Google’s Analytics and Travel blogs are still on the old domain.
Meanwhile, if anyone has any doubt about whether a Google blog is official, check out their Official Google Blogs directory: https://www.google.com/press/blog-directory.html
