How to Use a Custom Domain on Google Drive Hosted Website

I believe that you already knew that you can host your website with Google Drive. It's reliable, fast and the best thing about it is it's free. However with all these advantages, there's a negative side too, the URL of your Google Drive hosted website is too long and this will make the URL hard to remember.

Different from Blogger and Google Site, Google Drive has not included the custom domain feature. But thanks to http://gweb.io now you can use a short domain or even your own domain like www.example.com for your Google Drive hosted website. Actually there is another URL shortening service special for Google Drive http://gdriv.es/. It's much simpler, just follow the instructions on the homepage and you are good to go, but sadly you can't use your own domain.



Normal URL:
https://googledrive.com/host/0B47Pdqj--olfRTVSS3VnclRONkE/

gdriv.es:
http://gdriv.es/neldahealthyliving

gweb.io:
http://neldahealthyliving.gweb.io/
http://www.neldahealthyliving.com/

You can see that short URL or your own domain name is better and easier to remember than the normal URL. If you want to use custom domain on your Google Drive hosted website, please follow the steps below (Gweb.io recently made some changes, now it's simpler and more stable - Updated on September 18, 2013):

Step 1:
Go to http://gweb.io > Click Login with Google (Please be patient, it may take some time to login)

Step 2:
Click Accept

Step 3:
Select one Google Drive folder > Type any sub-domain > Click Add
And you will be able to access your site using this URL: http://example.gweb.io
If you want to use your own domain, proceed to the next step.

Step 4:
If you don't have any domain name, you have to register a domain name first on GoDaddy or Namecheap, you can search for available URLs, see results right away and the estimated purchase price for each domain name. If you already have your own domain name (Namecheap) > Select Domains > Click Manage Domains

Step 5:
Click on the domain name you want to use with Google Drive hosted website (e.g. neldahealthyliving.com)

Step 6:
Under Host Management > Click All Host Records

Step 7:
Add or modify the CNAME record and point to proxy.gweb.io > Click Save changes

Step 8:
Go to the gweb.io panel and Select one Google Drive folder > Type your domain name (e.g. www.neldahealthyliving.com) > Click Add  

Done. If you found this article helpful, then please share it with someone else by using the buttons below. Thank you!

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