Setting up Google Apps on your domain can be tricky for various levels of experience. If you don't follow the exact steps, you may end up delaying activation and causing delays in mail delivery.

First, identify your current domain hosting provider (aka DNS host) for your domain. A quick tool to locate this is: MXToolbox  Simply enter your domain in the empty box, then click "Whois Lookup".  You will see your current "Name Servers" hosting provider towards the bottom of the results. If you don't recognize the Name Server's domain, let us know and we can help you track them down.

Before attempting to activate your Google Apps domain, take a moment to lower the TTL in the DNS SOA record with your current host. This will help speed along the refreshed records when you perform the following:

• Activation/Authorization
• MX Record Updates
• Postini MX Record Updates (if using Postini)

Once you enter the authorization DNS entries (TXT or CNAME) you will need to verify them. If your DNS hosting provider takes a long time to make updates, expect this validation could take in excess of 24 hours or more. Most top-tier providers will update their name servers in less than an hour. It will still take time for the DNS changes to propagate through the Internet, but shouldn't take too long (less than 24-48 hours). If the validation is taking longer than 48 hours, call us right away - something isn't quite right.

You can continue activating the various Google Apps services after you've successfully authorized/activated your Google Apps domain.