What is Google Apps Domain Alias!
To put it simply, domain alias is nothing but another domain. Its a domain name that points to another/primary domain of yours. Domain aliases enable users to access the same Google Apps account through a number of different email addresses of different domains.
For example, many companies register several similar domain names (such as common misspellings of their domain name) or different versions of same domain like .com .net .info .biz .org etc.. and then use domain aliases to have all of the domain names point to the same site.
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Lets me explain it with an example. you have 3 domains mydomain.com, mydomain.net and mydomain.organd you have 2 users in your organization who need email accounts user1 and user2.
Consider mydomain.com is your primary domain, the domain which is visible to your customers and which you market it in your business cards and other promotions. You also have 2 domain aliases mydomain.net and mydomain.org.
Your main intention is to have 2 inboxes for the two users with the email address looking like user1@domain.com and user2@domain.com.
Since you own 2 other domains (called aliases) you also want to receive emails sent to user1@domain.netand user1@domain.org go to user1@domain.com inbox. since you dont want to maintain 3 inboxes for the above 3 email accounts. you want to send/receive emails for the above 3 email addresses from one single inbox. So it would be easy to manage all in one place.
With Google Apps Domain alias concept you can do that. On Google Apps signup page you will actually signup with your primary domain mydomain.com create 2 users, users1 & user2 verify and activate your google apps email..
Now your primary domain and users are active on google apps and able to send/receive emails. you can setup the other 2 domains as domain aliases to the primary domain.
To add a domain alias to your Google Apps account:
- Sign in to the Google Apps administrator control panel.The URL is https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/primary-domain-name, where primary-domain-name is the domain name you used to sign up for Google Apps.
- From the menu at the top of the page, select Domain settings.
- Choose the Domain names tab.
- Click/Select domain alias.
- Enter the name of the domain to add to your account.You must own the domain name, and it must not be registered as part of any other Google Apps account.
- To add the domain as a domain alias for your primary domain, select the check box Make this domain an alias of my primary domain.To add the domain as a separate domain, leave the check box unselected.
- Click Continue and verify domain ownership.If the domain name is already registered as part of a Google Apps account, an error message appears on the page. You cannot add the domain to this account unless you remove it from the existing account.
- Choose the method to use to verify your ownership of the domain.You have the option to create a CNAME record in the domain or upload an HTML file to the domain.
- Follow the instructions to verify your ownership of the domain.
- Click Verify and continue to setup email delivery.
- Update the MX records for the domain.If you want to route email addressed to the new domain differently from mail addressed to the primary domain, update the MX records for the domain to route email to the desired email server. If you are configuring a dual delivery pilot, update the MX records to route email to the Google Apps mail servers.
- Click I have completed these steps.
The status of the domain verification appears next to the domain name on the Domain names page of the Google Apps Control Panel. Immediately after completing the steps above, the status should read “Updating.”
You can also find more detailed explanation on domain aliases by google from here..