Point your custom domain to your site

Your site is live at a netlify.app address from the last guide. This final step turns it into yourbusiness.com — the address that makes your site look like the real, established business it represents. This is the part everyone finds intimidating, because it involves “DNS,” which sounds deeply technical. Here’s the honest truth: it’s a few settings, copied exactly from one screen to another, plus a wait. This is the one step in the whole path where you copy values precisely and don’t improvise — do that, take it slowly, and you’ll be fine.

Do I already have a domain, or do I need to buy one?

If you already own a domain name (like yourbusiness.com), you’re ready — skip ahead to connecting it. If not, buy one from a domain registrar — GoDaddy, Namecheap, Porkbun, Spaceship, and Cloudflare are all common — for roughly $10 to $15 a year.

A domain is the one genuine cost of having a website; everything else in this path is free. Pick a registrar, search for the name you want, and buy it through a normal online checkout. Two pieces of advice: register it in your own account so you always own and control it (don’t let a contractor or agency hold your domain “for” you), and keep that registrar login safe — it’s the key to your business’s address on the internet.

What is DNS, in plain English?

DNS is the internet’s address book. It’s the system that connects your domain name (yourbusiness.com) to wherever your website actually lives (Netlify). “Pointing your domain” just means adding your entry to that address book.

When someone types your domain, DNS is what tells their browser “the website for this name is over here.” Right now your domain doesn’t point anywhere useful. You’re going to add a couple of small entries that say, in effect, “send visitors to my Netlify site.” That’s the entire job. You don’t need to understand how DNS works underneath — you just need to copy a couple of values correctly.

How do I connect my domain in Netlify?

In your Netlify site, open Domain management, click Add a domain (or “Add custom domain”), and type your domain name. Netlify will then show you the exact DNS records to set up at your registrar.

Step by step:

1. In your Netlify site dashboard, go to Domain management → Add a domain.
2. Type your domain — for example, yourbusiness.com — and confirm. Netlify adds it to your site and checks who it belongs to.
3. Netlify now shows the DNS records you need, usually behind a link like “Check DNS configuration” or “Pending DNS verification.” Keep this screen open — these instructions are generated specifically for your domain, and they’re what you’ll copy in the next step.

The single most important rule for this whole process: use the values Netlify shows you. Don’t copy DNS values from tutorials (including this one) — they can change, and Netlify’s screen has the current, correct ones for your exact site.

How do I add the records at my registrar?

Log in to your domain registrar, find the DNS settings for your domain, and add the records Netlify gave you. You’ll add records of a couple of types — match what Netlify shows, field for field.

Here’s what to expect, so the screen isn’t a surprise:

• For the “www” version (www.yourbusiness.com): you’ll add a CNAME record. Its “host” or “name” is www, and its value points to your Netlify address (like your-site.netlify.app).
• For the bare version (yourbusiness.com, no www): the bare domain needs a different kind of record — Netlify will tell you whether to add an A record (with an IP address) or an ALIAS/ANAME record (pointing to a Netlify address). Use whichever one Netlify shows you. Its “host” is usually @ (which means the bare domain).

Every registrar’s DNS page looks a little different, but they all work the same way: there’s an “Add record” button with three things to fill in — a Type (A, CNAME, ALIAS), a Name/Host, and a Value/Target. Copy each one from Netlify exactly, then save.

One warning that matters: if you already use this domain for email, don’t delete your existing records. In particular, leave any MX records alone — those are what make your email work. You’re adding the two new records, not replacing everything. (This is exactly why we add records here rather than changing your domain’s “nameservers” — it leaves your email untouched.)

A simpler option, only if your domain is brand-new and you don’t use it for email yet: Netlify may offer to manage your DNS for you. If you take that route, you change your domain’s nameservers at your registrar to the ones Netlify gives you, and Netlify sets up every record automatically — including the tricky bare-domain one. It’s less fiddly, but it moves all DNS control to Netlify, so only choose it if there’s no email on the domain to protect.

How long until it works, and what about the padlock?

After you save the records, there’s a wait while the change spreads across the internet — this is called “propagation.” It’s often quick (minutes to a couple of hours), but it can take up to a day or two to fully settle. Netlify’s domain screen shows the status and updates itself when your domain is verified; don’t worry if it isn’t instant.

And the security padlock is handled for you, once again. As soon as your domain points to Netlify correctly, Netlify automatically issues a free HTTPS certificate for it (the same Let’s Encrypt service as before), so visitors to yourbusiness.com get the padlock with no effort from you. If Netlify shows the certificate as “pending,” it’s simply waiting on DNS — give it time and it resolves on its own.

One last touch worth setting: in Netlify’s domain settings, you can pick whether your main address is yourbusiness.com or www.yourbusiness.com. Netlify automatically redirects the other one to your choice, so both work and every visitor lands in the right place.

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That’s the whole journey. You started with an idea and no code, and you’ve briefed Claude, built a real website, organized its files, stored them on GitHub, published with Netlify, and pointed your own domain at it. What’s live now is a professional, secure website at your own address — one that updates itself whenever you change a file, and that you fully own and control.

If you want to keep going — adding pages, keeping your site fresh, or getting more out of Claude for the rest of your business — that’s exactly what the rest of Prompt & Mortar is here for.