ASP.NET Custom 404 Returning 200 OK Instead of 404 Not Found

Question

After trying to setup my site for Google Webmaster Tools I found that my Custom ASP.NET 404 page was not returning the 404 status code. It displayed the correct custom page

Answer 1

After much testing and troubleshooting it appears that certain hosting providers can interfere with the return code. I was able to get around this by applying a "hack" in the content.

<%
// This code is required for host that do special 404 handling...
Response.Status = "404 Not Found";
Response.StatusCode = 404;
%>

This will allow the page to return the correct return code no matter what.