Custom Domains, and a Typical "404 Not Found"

Sometimes, even with a properly setup custom domain, you (or your readers) may encounter a well known problem

Server Not Found

Error 404

Let's look at an excerpted HTTP trace of a typical blog showing the 404. You may want to compare this with a trace from a successful retrieval.

Sending request:

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: mydomain.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:
1.8.1.18) Gecko/20081029 Firefox/2.0.0.18
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 216.239.32.21
• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:
HTTP/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://www.mydomain.com(CR)(LF)

Sending request:

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.mydomain.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:
1.8.1.18) Gecko/20081029 Firefox/2.0.0.18
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 209.85.171.121
• Finding TCP protocol...
• Binding to local socket...
• Connecting to host...
• Sending request...
• Waiting for response...
Receiving Header:
HTTP/1.1·404·Not·Found(CR)(LF)

Here's the relevant part:

HTTP/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://www.mydomain.com(CR)(LF)

There's the "Redirect mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com." option, executed just fine.

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.mydomain.com

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 209.85.171.121

and finally

Receiving Header:
HTTP/1.1·404·Not·Found(CR)(LF)

In 9 cases out of 10, this is fairly simple to resolve.

• Ensure that the DNS addresses are properly configured.
• Publish the blog back to the Blog*Spot URL, then re publish it to the custom domain.
• If any errors are seen, recycle the domain settings in Google Apps.

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