Hosting a static site on Google App Engine

I host a static landing page, www.iandexter.net, on Amazon S3. I also have another static site, my resume (resume.iandexter.net), but this time, it is hosted on Google App Engine (GAE).

Setting up a static site on GAE is a bit more involved than AWS S3. Still, it's fairly straightforward:

1. Sign up for a GAE account.
2. Download the latest SDK.
3. Create a configuration file, app.yaml, similar to below:
   

   application: app-name
   version: 1
   runtime: python
   api_version: 1
   
   default_expiration: "30d"
   
   handlers:
   - url: /
     static_files: static/index.html
     upload: static/index.html
   
   - url: /
     static_dir: static
   
   - url: /.*
     static_files: static/404.html
     upload: static/404.html
   

   (It's a good idea to set up a 404 page similar to an Apache ErrorDocument.)
4. Set up the directory where the static files will be located:
   

   ./app.yaml
   ./static
   ./static/index.html
   ./static/favicon.ico
   ./static/robots.txt
   ./static/404.html
   

5. Test the site:
   

   /path/to/gae/sdk/dev_appserver.py app-name/

   viewable in http://localhost:8080.
6. Once you're satisfied, deploy the static site:
   

   /path/to/gae/sdk/appcfg.py app-name/

   The site is located at http://app-name.appspot.com.

In my case, I set up the custom domain through Google Apps for Domains, pointing a DNS alias to ghs.google.com.