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Custom Domains and Case Significance

As I've said repeatedly, Google Custom Domains depend heavily upon DNS.

In the DNS server world, there are two dominant players - Windows (which is provided by Microsoft), and Unix (which is provided by many different players). Just like USA politics (the Democratic party vs the Republican party), USA leading soft drinks (Coco-Cola vs Pepsi-Cola), and other dichotomies, the differences between the players are sometimes subtle (in appearance) but major (in effect).

The Windows vs Unix dichotomy has a major effect on the success of your custom domain.

The BlogSpot alias for this blog is "bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com". That's a mouthful, isn't it?

To make the URL of this blog more readable, and maybe get name recognition sometimes, I might spell it as "BloggerStatusForReal.BlogSpot.Com".

In the Unix world, "bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com" would not be considered the same blog as "BloggerStatusForReal.BlogSpot.Com". In the Windows world, however, "bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com" would be considered the same blog as "BloggerStatusForReal.BlogSpot.Com".

We say that Unix observes case, and that Windows preserves case. You can, if you wish, read the HP white paper, Case Sensitivity versus Case Preservation in CIFS Server, for an in depth discussion of the overall issues.

If Blogger / Google used only Unix servers, it's possible that the two URLs - "bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com" and "BloggerStatusForReal.BlogSpot.Com" - could refer to two different blogs. Since many blog owners use Microsoft Windows, Blogger has to consider the two spellings, and other variants - "BloggerStatusForreal.blogspot.com", "BloggerStatusFORReal.BlogSpot.Com", and so on - all refer to the same blog.

Besides the unpredictable nature of the clients (blogger computers), and a possibly relevant assortment of computers running Unix and Windows in the Google infrastructure, there's a third detail - in DNS, Google servers don't function solely as servers.

The DNS servers that we depend up to host our custom domains DNS addresses are the ones that Google depends upon too. Those servers, provides by a variety of Internet entities, will definitely be running a mixture of Unix and Windows.

And there is where one problem starts. The end result is that, if you ask for help, and mention "BloggerStatusFORReal.BlogSpot.Com" or "Blogging.NiteCruzr.Net", I will immediately correct you - and advise you to use "bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com" or "blogging.nitecruzr.net".

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