🌐 Domain Diaries Part 3: Wrestling with Google Sites (and Winning… Eventually)
If you’ve ever tried connecting a GoDaddy domain to a Google Site, you already know: it’s never as “simple” as the help docs make it out to be. Last night we learned this the hard way.
The goal was straightforward: take one of our freshly registered domains — manhattanpaintingpros.com — and point it toward a clean Google Site build. The theory was solid: Google favors its own ecosystem, so why not let their pages do the ranking work for local lead-gen?
Simple in concept. Messy in execution.
🏗️ The First Attempt: BoltAItools Workspace vs. Google’s Walls
We started inside our BoltAItools Google Workspace account, thinking we could just add the new domain as a secondary and map it over. ❌ Wrong. Google Sites locked us into boltaitools.com as the only “custom URL” path.
For an hour, it felt like being stuck in a hall of mirrors:
TXT records that wouldn’t verify
Custom domain settings that disappeared as soon as we clicked them
Help docs pointing to features that didn’t exist anymore
At one point, we even wondered if Google wanted us to paste .com twice. That’s how far down the rabbit hole we went.
Lesson learned: Google Sites is very opinionated about who owns what domain. If your Workspace identity doesn’t match, good luck.
🔑 The Breakthrough: New Account, Clean Slate
The real progress came when we stopped fighting the system and created a fresh Google account — manhattanpaintingpros@gmail.com.
Once we bought the domain in GoDaddy, tied it directly to that account, and walked through Google’s verification steps, everything clicked. ✅ The site was verified, mapped, and live within minutes.
That’s when it hit us: if the goal is to build out disposable lead-gen sites or flippable web properties, then every domain deserves its own Google account.
Benefits:
Easier to set up
Easier to hand off if we sell
Cleaner bookkeeping per project
📈 SEO, or the Lack Thereof
Here’s where Google Sites still lags: SEO customization. Unlike Squarespace or WordPress, there’s no neat panel for metadata, no simple place to edit search settings. You can work around it with smart titles and headings, but don’t expect fine-grained SEO control.
That said, Google Sites builds are:
Lightweight
Fast-loading
Surprisingly rankable in local niches without heavy backlinking
So while it’s barebones, it works.
🛠️ Why This Matters
By the end of the night, we had manhattanpaintingpros.com live and functional, with nychvacplumbers.com also online. Two real-world test cases ready to rank.
The bigger takeaway:
Google Sites can be a viable engine for simple, rankable properties.
Fresh Google accounts per domain make the process faster and resale-ready.
Sometimes the best play is to stop over-engineering and just keep things simple.
🚀 What’s Next
Now that the pipes are connected, the next steps are clear:
Build local SEO content for each site
Add lead capture forms
Monitor rankings against local competitors
Test monetization (rent to contractors or flip the whole site)
It wasn’t glamorous — but this is the kind of groundwork that builds a self-sustaining portfolio of digital real estate. Each working site adds weight to the overall portfolio, and each flip pays for dozens of renewals.
✍️ Wrap-Up
Last night felt like digital plumbing. Messy, frustrating, but once the pipes connected, the water flowed. With over 60 domains in the bank, these two are just the beginning.
And that’s the game here — stacking small wins into a portfolio that compounds over time. Some we’ll flip fast, others we’ll hold for five years, but every connection, every listing, every little experiment pushes the machine forward.
⚡ Built With Bolts
If you’re following along with the Domain Diaries, this is the blueprint in action:
buy smart, build lean, and make the web work for you.
That’s what we’re building at BoltAItools — systems that make digital work easier, faster, and more automated. Whether it’s domains, websites, or workflows, the playbook is the same: connect the pipes, let the system run, and stack the wins.
