How To Setup Google Apps Account And Configure Gmail For A Fully Hosted Domain

It’s preferred to have Gmail as the mail client so that you get the familiar user interface and also in case of moving your hosting to another service, there is no need to move, configure mails once again. In this article we give you the step by step guide to setup a standard account (free) with Google Apps, and then configure Gmail as your mail client, for a Dream host full hosted domain. But the process is pretty much similar for any other hosting provider such as GoDaddy.

In case you are on a hosting other than DreamHost, skip steps 1 and 2 and start with step 3.

1. Go to Manage Domains from your Dreamhost dashboard and click on ‘Edit’ for the domain you want to configure.

2. Scroll down the page to find the section titled ‘Google Hosted Services’. Select the two check boxes for Gmail, and Google Apps, and click ‘Change settings’. Now you are ready to go to the next step and sign up for Google Apps.

3. Sign up for a free account with Google Apps. You have two options while signing up, you can either use an existing domain name, or buy one from Google. In case you already have a domain name that came with a hosting plan, then use the first option. Use the second option in case you have a hosting plan without a domain name.

4. In our case, we have chosen the first option, an existing domain name. Enter your domain name, and click ‘Get Started’.

5. In the next step, you will be required to enter your personal and organization details. Fill in your details and proceed to the next step of setting up your administrator account

6. In this step, enter username and password. This account is used  to manage your domain. After filling the form, agree to Google’s terms and conditions and proceed to the next step.

7. In this step, you are required to verify your domain for Google Apps. There are two verification methods, you can either upload an HTML file to your domain root, or change your domain’s CNAME record.

8. If you choose to upload a HTML file, then create a file named googlehostedservice.html, copy and paste the text given by Google Apps into this file and upload it via FTP to your server. You should be able to open this HTML page in a browser by typing http://www.mywebsite.com/googlehostedservice.html. Any time you want to choose the other method, simply click on ‘Select another method’, found below the ‘I will verify later’ button.

9. In this article, we have chosen to use the CNAME records verification method. In step 7, choose ‘Change mywebsite.com CNAME record’ and click ‘Continue’. In the following screen, you will be given a unique string for the CNAME record that you should create, and point to google.com. Note down this string and go to your Dreamhost panel in a new browser tab or window.

10. In your DreamHost panel, go to ‘Manage Domains’ found on the left under the ‘Domains’ menu, and click on ‘DNS’ for the domain under consideration.

11. Scroll down the page to the ‘Add a custom DNS record’ section. Now enter the unique string you noted down in step 9 in the ‘Name’ field, change the ‘Type’ by selecting ‘CNAME’ from the drop down box, and enter ‘google.com’ for ‘Value’. Click  ‘Add Record Now’.

12. Confirm that this custom DNS record is added by refreshing the page. You should now see the newly added record in the section titled ‘Your custom DNS record for mywebsite.com’ below the ‘Add a custom DNS record..’ section.

13. Now go back to the Google Apps CNAME verification window (step 9 above) and click ‘I’ve completed the steps above’ button. If everything goes fine, Google Apps setup should be complete and you should see the following window. Click on ‘Skip this guide’ if you like to continue to the Google Apps dashboard.

14. The next part is to setup Gmail as your domain’s Email client. Under the ‘Email’ section of Google Apps dashboard, click on ‘Activate email’. You will be taken to the ‘Set up email delivery’ wizard.

15. For making Google to host your Email account, you need to change the Mail Exchange (MX) records so that they point to Google’s servers. These MX records are usually available under the ‘Mail’ section of your hosting account. In this step, you can choose to view the instructions for many  other hosting platforms such as 123-reg.co.uk, cPanel, Domain Explorer, Enom, GoDaddy, DynaDot, DynDNS, and so on.

Choose the one that is right for you, and follow the given instructions step by step to modify the MX records.For a DreamHost account, completing steps 1 and 2, will ensure that the custom MX records for Google are added.

16. Click on ‘I have completed these steps’. Now you should wait for a while till your Email shows up as ‘Active’ on the Google Apps dashboard. Once it is active, you can check your mails at mail.mywebsite.com.

Log in with the username and password that you gave in step 6. Want to create more users? Go to the ‘Users and groups’ tab from your Google apps dashboard.

By setting up Google apps for your website, you also automatically get Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Sites.

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