Now, when I was looking at going to a university in my area, I noticed that their e-mail goes through Gmail and they have Docs access, but it's all through the school domain name. So I was intrigued to find out how. Did you know that you can add the power of Google Apps to your website for free (given you use "Standard Edition")? Your PC Forums uses the power of Hotmail for their staff e-mail accounts, but having the entire Google Apps suite at your fingertips is quite appealing and may be worthy of switching our e-mail over at another time. However, for the time being, I will demonstrate how to do this by adding it to another website that I manage.



First off, go to the Google Apps website at http://www.google.com/apps/ . In order to get to the right version, I clicked the "Business IT Manager" link and on the following page, clicked the "Standard" link under "Other Google Apps Editions".

Then, click the "Get Started" link. I'm assuming that you are the webmaster of your site, so click the "Administrator: I own or control this domain" radio button and enter your domain name into the box.



Then fill out the information as it pertains to your site. Answer questions as accurately as possible. Then click Next Step.



Then, you will create your administrative account and accept the license agreement.



Then, Google Apps gives you the option of uploading an HTML file to your site to change the DNS values or for you to do them manually. I will do the option to do the HTML file since I can upload to my web site easily.



Now, I am instructed to create an HTML file with one line and upload it to the site. So I open Notepad, copy and paste the code given, and save it as the filename and type specified and then upload it.





Once that is done, a tutorial is offered about Google Apps. Then, you can go to your dashboard and finish any final steps that need to be complete. It will most likely take some time for the DNS changes to propegate so it may take a good 24 hours before everything works. In the meantime, explore and get to see what Google offers for your website.



This concludes my how-to article. I hope this is helpful for unleashing Google for your website.