Website Setup

Why Anonymous?

...because there are crazy people out there. This won't prevent the authorities from easily being able to identify you if they want to (that's a whole different guide that I haven't written yet) but it can keep the average maniac from showing up on your doorstep because you don't share the same political views. This comes pretty easy to me. I grew up when the internet was in its infancy and putting your real information into any website was as ludicrous as putting clothing on your pets.

Get Yourself Another Google Account

The point here is that you're going to be a new person on the internet without any ties to your real person and personal accounts. You need an email address and access to other tools like sites.google.com to get your website going.

• Factory reset an android phone (it doesn't need to be activated or even have a sim card in it) and when asked to sign in, create a new google account. Using a phone will prevent the need to link it to a phone number. Most people only have one phone number, and it's linked to their personal google account.

• You will be given the option to skip adding a phone number. Do that...

• You will want to make sure and go back and pick a recovery email address in case you ever forget your password or need to confirm your identity for some reason. Otherwise, the account will be permanently locked. I used my personal email address appending “+{otheremailname}” to the end. Example: JonSwan+otheremailname@gmail.com. It will still go to your inbox, but you can search the text after the “+” and find every occurrence of those emails in your inbox… or sort it or assign labels or whatever you feel like doing at the time.

• Make sure the user birth date is over 18 so there are no restrictions. I know there are under 13 or so restrictions, but I don’t know if there are any others so I just played it safe.

Get Your Domain Name

• While logged into your new google account, go to domains.google.com and get yourself the domain you want.

• Make sure you leave privacy on and then you can use your real name and credit card to get the domain and no one will be able to see your private info using a whois request or a website like https://lookup.icann.org/lookup

• Make sure this info is correct so you can be contacted about your domain if there’s ever a reason. Apparently ICANN can just take your domain if they contact you and you don't respond, so this seems important.

Create A New Email Address That Uses Your New Domain Name

Just want to put a little disclaimer in here... After this method you will be able to receive mail to you gmail inbox when it is sent to jonny@thismighthelp.info and you will be able to send email AS jonny@thismighthelp.info from your gmail inbox, however, when the person receives it, it will have the "via gmail" message after your from address meaning this method is not perfect. Receiving email at your domain email address will work fine. Sending actually works fine too, except there seems to be a better chance you will get marked as spam for various email providers. Before you say to use the "mailgun" method, it does not appear to be free anymore as of 4/9/2020. I was not able to find a place to sign up for a free account. If you think you know how to make this work, please email me and let me know.

• Now that you own your domain, create your new email address that sends and receives using your new domain name.

  • Go to domains.google.com and choose the “Email” option on the left menu.

  • Then create your new email address using your new domain and set the email address (your new gmail address you just created) that you want to forward it to.

  • Go to https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps. If you can enable “Less secure apps,” go ahead and do that. If you get an error, it’s probably because you have 2-Step Verification enabled. Go to https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords to create an app-specific password instead.

  • Now head over to your new gmail.

  • Go to the settings icon and choose “Settings”

  • Choose “Accounts and Import” from the top menu

  • To the right of “Send mail as:” click the link that says “Add another email address”

    • Name: {whatever name you want people to see when you send them email}

    • Email address: {the new email address that uses your new domain name that you just set up}

    • Leave “Treat as an alias” box checked.

    • Don’t bother changing your “reply-to” address. This won’t change your “from” address when people receive your emails. Continue on and this process will do just that.

    • Click on “Next Step”

    • Enter the following credentials:

      • SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com

      • Username: The part of your gmail address that comes before “@gmail.com”

      • Password: Your Gmail or App-specific password

      • Port: 587 or 465

      • Secure connection using: TLS for 587, SSL for 465

  • You’ll be sent an email with a verification link. Make sure to click it to enable your new address.

  • Once you are returned to the Settings page, click Make default next to your new, custom email.

Create Your Website And Use Your New URL

Go to sites.google.com and click the plus at the bottom of the page. From here you can just start building your website. There are plenty of guides on how to do this part, so just play around. When you're ready for the public to see your site, follow the below steps to get your new URL to point to your site in google.

• • On the upper right side, click the gear icon for Settings, and choose Custom URLs from the left side.

  • Enter the URL you would like to use. (example:www.yourdomain.com). A blue check will appear if the URL is still available. Click Assign.

  • The URL you added should appear under the line. Now click the X button to close the window.

  • On the upper right side, click the dropdown arrow beside Publish, and choose Publish Settings.

  • Make sure the checkbox for the Search settings is ticked and click Save.

  • Now sign in to Google Domains: domains.google.com/registrar.

  • Click the DNS tab on the left panel, and scroll down to Custom resource records.

  • Please enter the following:

    • First field: www

    • Second field: CNAME

    • Third field: 1H

    • Fourth field: ghs.googlehosted.com

    • Click Add once done.

  • Alright, now for the last step, scroll up to Synthetic records section.

  • Please enter the following:

    • Subdomain field: @

    • Destination URL field: www.thismighthelp.info

    • Leave all the other options as they are and click on Save.

  • Note that all these changes may be affected by propagation delay that could take from a couple of minutes up to 24-48 hours.

Start Building Your Site While Waiting 48 Hours

At this point I was anxious to see my URL point to my site, so the thought of waiting 48 hours was agonizing. Eventually I just got over it and started adding content. I realized I didn't have anything worth reading yet, so I might as well get started while I waited. I checked a few minutes later and it was already working.

Q&A

Q: For the subdomain forward, why use "temporary redirect" instead of "permanent redirect"?

A: Temporary redirect allows you to propagate changes more quickly. That is, if you would be editing your website, once you click on Publish, the changes would reflect quicker than Permanent redirect.

Q: Why not "Forward Path"?

A: This is a personal preference. If you would forward path, if people would search for thismighthelp.info/home, they would be forwarded to your SitesURL/home. If you select do not forward path, when people search for thismighthelp.info/anything, they would still be forwarded to your Sites URL as it is.

Q: Why disable SSL?

A: With this, SSL certificate lets your domain redirect to work for both http and https. Google Domains automatically provides the SSL certificate for websites hosted through Google Sites. That said, we may leave it as disable SSL. This one is important to ask from your web host provider if you have third-party web hosting service.