I understand CNAME is an alias to another record. Since I am using melbourneIT for my domain name, when I set up Google Apps, I need to verify my domain name ownership through CNAME record change.
However when I see page: http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=142005#CNAME (please tick "I want to verify using a CNAME record"), I am totally confused at what information to use in order to create the CNAME record for this verification purpose.
Please see below for the information from http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=142005#CNAME:
Host Name/Alias Value/Destination
Custom URL: www ghs.google.com
Verification: googlefffggghhh12345 (your unique string) google.com
If my domain name is mydomainname.com, what should I put into my CNAME record (the value for HOSTNAME and POINTS TO, as in my DNS management panel shows)?
It's confusing because it looks like two entries. I think you want to use the second set of criteria for verification. So you'd enter the googlefffggghhh12345 as the alias(or host), and it would point to google.com.
You might want to do both or alternatively do mail as a cname and point it to ghs.google.com. You'll want to do that eventually anyway.
The cname, www pointing to ghs.google.com, is consistent with telling your domain host to check to see if there's a webpage setup in google sites and send people there. If there isn't one, and there isn't a sitemap within apps for one, I think the domain would just return to current hosting.