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Another blog is already hosted at this address - January 2009

Recently, a variant on the well known custom domain setup problem, "Another blog is already hosted at this address" has been seen in newly setup custom domains.

A (excerpted) Dig extract, for the domain in question shows no problem. Maybe, the standard Asymmetrical DNS Configuration (aka Google Apps configuration).

mydomain.com. 1800 IN A 216.239.32.21
mydomain.com. 1800 IN A 216.239.34.21
mydomain.com. 1800 IN A 216.239.36.21
mydomain.com. 1800 IN A 216.239.38.21
www.mydomain.com. 1800 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
---
ghs.google.com. 465476 IN CNAME ghs.l.google.com.
ghs.l.google.com. 300 IN A 74.125.43.121

alternately, the standard Symmetrical DNS Configuration

mydomain.com. 1800 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
www.mydomain.com. 1800 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
---
ghs.google.com. 465476 IN CNAME ghs.l.google.com.
ghs.l.google.com. 300 IN A 74.125.43.121

Even with the standard DNS configuration, we still have the problem
Another blog is already hosted at this address.


An HTTP trace shows us the cause of the problem.

Sending request:

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: mydomain.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:
1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 216.239.36.21
• 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:
1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
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/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:·text/html;·charset=UTF-8(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://sites.google.com/a/mydomain.com/sites/system/app/pages/meta/domainWelcome(CR)(LF)


In this case, you'll need to disable the Sites service. You'll have to start by getting access to Google Apps. Then use the URL "www.google.com/a/cpanel/mydomain.com/SitesSettings", and disable Sites. (As always, substitute the actual domain URL for "mydomain.com").

A similar HTTP trace:

Sending request:

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: mydomain.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:
1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address...
• Host IP address = 216.239.36.21
• 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:
1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
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/1.1·302·Moved·Temporarily(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:·text/html;·charset=UTF-8(CR)(LF)
Location:·http://start.mydomain.com(CR)(LF)

The Start Page service is similar to Sites, except it has to be reset directly within Google Apps. As above, start by getting access to Google Apps.

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Comments

Alan A said…
Hi Chuck,

I have been reading up on DNS, www or not www, 301 redirects, set preferred domain, etc. for a couple of months & my brain fried! I still don't quite know how to handle a couple of things. I hope you can help. I purchased my domain w/ Google a couple months ago & my DNS settings appear as above. Setting up my custom domain in Blogger, I had to use www.mydomain.com as the main address & mydomain.com is being forwarded to the www URL. I don't believe there was a choice. I would get the "nother blog is published" error if I used mydomain.com as the primary. Yet my DNS settings have www a CNAME & @ as the A records as in your example above. Is this set-up ok? Is everything routed properly? And, in following your directions to set up a site map, I am now confused about "setting a preferred domain" & doing a 301 redirect. Not sure what to do here despite reading countless posts. Do you make house calls? :) I will be more than happy to post this in forum if that is better for you. Thanks Chuck!
Nitecruzr said…
Alan,

You have a lot of questions there. Yes, I think that either GBH: Something Is Broken, or in Nitecruzr Dot Net - Blogging would be better choices.

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