Site Is Live on Custom Domain: www.abdulkoomson.com

Big milestone today—I officially launched my website on its own custom domain: www.abdulkoomson.com.

🔁 What Changed

✅ Added a custom favicon (tab logo)
✅ Merged my client-side-telemetry branch into main
✅ Upgraded my Azure App Service from the free tier to enable custom domains
✅ Connected and went live with the domain

💥 Challenges I Hit Along the Way

This wasn’t a smooth push-and-go deployment. After upgrading to enable custom domains, I ran into several issues—mainly around SSL and app service behavior.

🔐 SSL Binding Deployment Error

Initially, I hit a snag when trying to configure SSL for my domain. Azure threw an error:

“Another operation is in progress.”

I had to wait it out and try again later for the binding to complete correctly.

🚫 Site Still Not Live?

After resolving the SSL part, the site still wasn’t appearing. Here’s what fixed it:

Reconfigured Application Settings
Changed the FTP state
Temporarily disabled the HTTPS Only redirect

This allowed HTTP requests to succeed, and finally made the app accessible on the domain.

✅ Why Disabling HTTPS Only Might Help Temporarily:

If your SSL certificate wasn’t fully set up, HTTPS connections could fail.
Temporarily allowing HTTP lets you test that the server and app are working before HTTPS is fully functional.
It can help identify if the issue is with your certificate or redirect config.

❌ Why It's Risky to Leave HTTP Enabled:

Security Risk: HTTP sends data in plain text — passwords, cookies, etc., can be intercepted.
Browser Warnings: Modern browsers will flag your site as "Not Secure".
SEO Penalty: Search engines prefer secure (HTTPS) sites. Google may penalize insecure ones.
User Trust: Users are less likely to trust or interact with an HTTP-only site.

✅ What You Should Do After It’s Working:

Once you’ve confirmed your app is functional:

Fix SSL (HTTPS) properly:
- Ensure the certificate is valid, not expired, and installed correctly.
- Use a trusted CA like Let’s Encrypt, GoDaddy, or your cloud provider’s SSL service.
Re-enable HTTPS Only in your app settings (Azure, Nginx, Apache, etc.).
Set up an automatic redirect from HTTP to HTTPS (most cloud platforms support this easily).
Check HSTS settings: If appropriate, configure HSTS to tell browsers to always use HTTPS.

📊 Telemetry Now Active

As mentioned in prior Post , I’d already implemented client-side telemetry using Azure Application Insights.

Now that the site is live on its real domain, I’ll be able to start collecting real-world data about page views, user behavior, and performance.

🎯 What’s Next

Track telemetry over the next week and refine user experience
Finish setting up my project showcase and downloads section
Start building a small admin panel for post publishing

💬 Final Thoughts

Going live with your own domain feels small from the outside—but inside, it’s a big step forward. It brings legitimacy to what you’re building, and creates a platform to scale from.

To anyone launching on Azure or running into similar deployment headaches—just keep going. Each tweak and fix is one step closer to having your platform truly live.

Have deployment tips or want help connecting your custom domain in Azure? Reach out anytime.