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Google Apps on Godaddy

Thu, 05/08/2008 - 10:28 — Court

I'm a huge fan of Google Apps which includes customized Gmail, Google Documents and Spreadsheets so every time I setup a hosting account I always configure Google Aps for customers. Google does have their own little tutorial pages but I've found them to be dissappointingly short on details specifically regarding the "prevent spam" option. I want to prevent spam! I don't want anyone emailing other companies spoofing my URL, that just sucks for everyone.

Below I have coppied the basic setup information for Google Apps on Godaddy or Sustainable Online Solutions ver batim from Google's help pages as follows:

Creating Your CNAME Record: GoDaddy.com

1. Log in to your account at www.godaddy.com.
2. Open the Domains tab and select My Domain Names. You'll be directed to the Manage Domains page.
3. Click the domain that you'd like to use with Google Apps.
4. Click the Total DNS Control And MX Records in the box entitled Total DNS Control. Note: Adding entries to the Manage Subdomains section does not create a CNAME record.
5. Click Add New CNAME Record. If you've already created a CNAME record for the address, click Edit next to the existing CNAME record.
6. Step 1: For domain verification, enter the unique Google string available in the control panel. For custom URLs, enter the part of the address that you picked in your Google Apps control panel. For example, if you picked urban.mydomain.com as your address, enter urban for step one. Step 2: As the host name, enter google.com for domain verification or ghs.google.com for custom URLs. Step 3: Leave as default selection.
7. Click Continue, and then click Add. If you're editing an existing CNAME record, click Continue and Update.

Congratulations! Your CNAME record is now configured to point to Google. Keep in mind that changes to DNS record settings may take up to 48 hours.

Configuring Your MX Records: GoDaddy.com

If you purchased your domain name from GoDaddy.com while signing up for Google Apps, you shouldn't use these instructions. Instead, you can activate email in the control panel and Google will automatically configure your MX records with GoDaddy.com.

If you'd like GoDaddy.com to automatically update your MX records for Google Apps, please log in to GoDaddy's configuration tool at https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/google/gmail_login.asp.

To manually configure your MX records, please follow the directions below.

1. Log in to your account at www.godaddy.com.
2. Open the Domains tab and select My Domain Names. You'll be directed to the Manage Domains page.
3. Click the domain that you'd like to use with Google Apps.
4. Click the Total DNS Control And MX Records in the box entitled Total DNS Control.
5. Clear all existing MX Records by clicking Delete.
6. Click OK in the confirmation dialogue box.
7. Once you've deleted all existing records, click Add New MX Record. The MX (Mail Exchangers) Record Wizard will appear.
8. For each MX Record, enter information according to the data in the table below:
* For the Select the Priority Value drop-down menu, enter the priority value.
* For Enter a Host Name, leave the default setting to @.
* For Enter Goes To Address enter the Gmail server name.
* For the Select TTL Value drop-down menu, enter 1 Hour. This will appear as 3600 seconds within the DNS system.

PriorityValue - HostName - Goes To Address (Mail Server) - TTLValue
10 - @ - ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. - 1 Hour
20 - @ - ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. - 1 Hour
30 - @ - ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. - 1 Hour
40 - @ - ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. - 1 Hour
50 - @ - ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. - 1 Hour

9. Click Continue.
10. Click Add to confirm each entry. The DNS Manager main page will reappear when you've finished.

Congratulations! Your MX records are now configured to point to Google. Keep in mind that changes to MX records may take up to 48 hours to propagate throughout the Internet.

NOTE: Make sure each entry is entered exactly as it appears in the following table, including the trailing dot at the end of each record.

  • Spam Prevention - Change the SPF record to fight SPAM (optional) You may define the SPF record to authorize only certain IP addresses to send email for your domain. This will prevent spammers from sending unauthorized email under a forged address from your domain.

    The thing is, this can be very confusing and Google doesn't provide much instruction! Here's how to change the SPF record in Godaddy or Sustainable Online Solutions to fight spam. First login to the domain control center, click on the domain you are setting the SPF record for, click on Total DNS Control and MX Records, scroll down to TXT (Text) and click on the pencil icon do edit the text record. A popup window will appear with a series of options as follows:

  1. This domain sends mail through... (choose an ISP or other mail provider then hit OK)
  2. The next page has four tabs you only need to change options on the Inbound tab and the Outsourced tab
  3. On the  Inbound tab check the box for All Inbound Servers May Send Mail
  4. On the Outsourced tab simply fill in the form with the following text and then check the box for Exclude all hosts not specified here (-all): v=spf1 include:aspmx.googlemail.com

Below is a short video of the setup process for spam prevention in Godaddy and Sustainable Online Solutions:

 

It's also worth noting that sometimes even when you change the DNS records on Godaddy you still have to update the A Record with the new hosting IP address. Several times I have updated the Domain Name Servers only to discover days later that the site still wasn't showing up. Changing the A Record is done in much the same way as updating the DNS records and MX Records in the control panel, just click the old A Record and replace the IP Address there with the new hosting IP. It should go through within a day.