It was supposed to be easy to set up Google Adsense for domains but for whatever reason it wasn’t. I have a parked domain on bluehost (http://www.itjobsseattle.com) which I am using to experiment with. For some reason, after adding it to Adsense, the domain could not be verified. I set up the 4 name servers as Google recommends. Then I waited for it to update. The next day I checked the domain to find that it was pointing to Google but getting a 404 error on their servers. Their next recommendation was to manually setup the DNS entries (A and CNAME records). I did so in the Bluehost DNS Zone Editor. I deleted all records except those that Google asks for. The 404 error remained and Adsense refused to verify my DNS settings. After fiddling with it for a while this is what worked for me…
- In the Bluehost Domain Manager, set your domain’s name servers to point to the default Bluehost servers.
- In the Bluehost DNS Zone Editor, set the A and CNAME records as recommended by Google. You might have to wait 4 to 24 hours before moving on to the next step. Bluehost’s default TTL on their DNS entries is 4 hours.
- In Adsense click the link to verify your domain. It should verify properly at this point but typing the domain name into a browser without the www will take you to your Bluehost website. With the www it should go to a Google page of links.
- In the Bluehost Domain Manager, set your domain’s name server to point to the 4 name servers recommended by Google.
This worked on my parked domain.
