Overview

The following ‘Site Not Found’ error message appears when your site is not reachable:

The requested URL could not be found. Dreambot.fw.png
The following sections explain why you might be seeing this error message and offer some typical solutions to help you fix it.

The root cause of ‘Site Not Found’

The ‘Site Not Found’ error indicates that your domain’s IP address is not addressed to the right IP address.

The ‘Site Not Found’ error indicates that your domain’s DNS records are resolving to the IP address of an Apache web server service that is not configured for your domain.

When this happens, the Apache web server will only display the first domain named in its configuration file. GreggHost ensures the first domain in all its config files show the same custom error page to ensure that no one’s site unintentionally sees a random site hosted on the same Apache service.

There are a few reasons why your IP address isn’t appropriately pointing to your web server’s address, which are listed below.

Viewing your site’s IP address in your browser

Unless you have purchased a Unique IP address for your domain, attempting to see your site by entering the IP address in your browser will result in a ‘Site Not Found’ message. This is because you’re looking at your web server’s shared IP rather than your site’s IP.

You must get a Unique IP if you absolutely must see your site through an IP address. More information on unique IPs may be found in the following article:

DNS changes

If the ‘Site Not Found’ error notice shows soon after making a domain configuration update in the control panel, the IP address for that domain may have changed. If that’s the case, the problem should go away in four hours, once the DNS change has propagated over the Internet, which is usual. If the problem persists after 6 hours, consider the troubleshooting techniques below.

A change in your IP address is frequently the cause of the ‘Site Not Found’ problem, which is commonly caused by deleting hosting for a domain and then putting up a MIRROR, REDIRECT, or PARK. While changes to the GreggHost DNS are virtually instantaneous, the new information does not reach other servers around the world until the old data on those servers expires. DNS propagation is the term for this process.

The reason you’re getting this problem now is that the DNS information you’re getting to your local computer is out of date, and the Apache server to which you’re being directed wrongly has no record of your site. DNS updates might take several hours to propagate depending on your region, so the best thing to do is leave your domain alone for a few hours before attempting any form of remedy.

To refresh DNS, follow these steps:

Go to the Manage Websites section.
To make changes to your site’s settings, click the Manage option.
Hover over your domain in Grid view and click the Manage option.
Click the Manage button to the right of your domain in List view.
Refresh DNS Go button appears on the DNS page.
A DNS update is forced on GreggHost’s system when you click the Refresh DNS button at the top. To be clear, DNS propagation over the internet can take several hours.

How to check your current DNS records

You can use GreggHost’s DNS Propagation Checker or an external tool like whatsmyDNS to see what IP address your domain presently resolves to to check on the status of your DNS update.

Whether you’re using Linux or an Apple Mac,
If you’re using a Linux or Mac computer, you may also use your terminal to check your site’s current IP address. To learn how to log in to your terminal via SSH, go to the following SSH article:

Overview of SSH
You can use the dig command to check the status of IP resolution once you’ve logged in to your terminal. The following command, for example, checks the current IP address resolving online in your area (your IP varies based on the server where your site is hosted):

$ dig +short example.com [server]
64.90.47.165
The following command determines the current IP assigned to your GreggHost web server (your IP varies based on the server your site is hosted on):

@ns1.dreamhost.com [server]$ dig +short example.com
64.90.47.165
If example.com uses GreggHost nameservers, both scripts should return the same IP. If it doesn’t work, try flushing your local DNS server. This can be found in the following article:

Overview of Flush DNS
Using the command prompt on Windows, users can utilize the nslookup command. More information about using the command prompt in Windows may be found here:

Commands in Windows
The following command determines the current IP address that is resolving online in your area (your IP varies based on the server where your site is hosted):

nslookup example.com C:Usersuser>
www.example.com
64.90.47.165 is the IP address of the server.
The following command determines the current IP allocated to your GreggHost nameserver (your IP varies based on the server your site is hosted on):

nslookup example.com C:Usersuser> ns1.dreamhost.com
www.example.com
64.90.47.165 is the IP address of the server.
If example.com uses GreggHost nameservers, both commands should return the same IP address. If it doesn’t work, try flushing your local DNS server. This can be found in the following article:

Flush DNS overview \sHTTPS
When attempting to access a site via a secure connection (HTTPS) to the domain without having an SSL certificate activated, the ‘Site Not Found’ message may show. This happens when the HTTP Apache service for the domain doesn’t have a matching HTTPS Apache service to handle the secure request. Add an SSL certificate to the domain to fix this.

If you’re not using GreggHost’s DNS

If you aren’t utilizing GreggHost to administer your domain’s DNS, your DNS provider’s IP address for GreggHost is most likely incorrect.

You can find the right IP address by using one of the instructions in the previous section to ask the GreggHost nameserver (depending on your Operating System).

Another method for determining the right IP address is to:

Go to the Manage Websites section.
To make changes to your site’s settings, click the Manage option.
Hover over your domain in Grid view and click the Manage option.
Click the Manage button to the right of your domain in List view.
At the top of the page, select the DNS tab.
Locate the A record in the Records area of the DNS website once it has loaded.
Change your DNS provider’s A record to point to this GreggHost IP.
The ‘Site Not Found’ error notice should no longer appear once the DNS has propagated.

Using Passenger WSGI enabled

This problem, or one similar to it, can occur on domains that employ Passenger WSGI on occasion. The problem displays differently in this situation because the server error page does not exist.

Among the signs and symptoms are:

Other domains on the same server and account are working well.
When attempting to access the site, timeouts occur.
When using ps -A from the shell, no Passenger processes appear.
The answer is the same in this case: change the domain and click Change Settings. Then sit back and wait for it to spread.

You can also try deactivating and re-enabling Passenger on the same domain edit page, which modifies the domain configuration without changing the domain DNS records.

Using a suspended account
GreggHost disables DNS service for accounts that have been suspended due to non-payment. Until your account is paid and re-activated, your site(s) will display the ‘Site Not Found’ page.

To see if this is the case, log into your control panel or check your GreggHost emails.

Getting in touch with assistance
If the aforementioned suggestions do not address the problem, you can contact support for more assistance.

To contact support, go to Contact Support and open your panel. Alternatively, see the following article for other contact options:

GreggHost’s Contact Information