Building a website and app using AI
Part 2 — adding your domain to the website
In this part we’ll go through setting up your domain name to point to the website. If you followed the steps in part 1, you’ll already have a purchased domain name and an email address. You can use other providers, but I tend to use Namecheap for domain registration and Zoho for email accounts.
We also hosted our website using Netlify, so we need to do some configuration in both Netlify and Namecheap to get our domain name pointing correctly, and we do this by updating our DNS records.
Head to the domains section of Netlify —
Next add in the domain name you purchased and click verify:
You can skip the part adding the optional DNS records for now. We will ned to add them, but first of all we want to get Namecheap pointing to Netlify, so just click on “Continue”.
You’ll then be show the four Netlify DNS server address you’ll need for Namecheap:
Head back to Namecheap….
Tip: Make a note of all the TXT values and MX values that we created in part 1 of this guide, and save them in a file as you’ll need to transfer all of these value across to Netlify.
Once you’ve noted all the TXT and MX values, you’re now ready to point Namcheap to the Netlify DNS servers. Switch to the “Domain” tab in Namecheap and select “custom DNS”
You’ll see there options to add in two Nameservers. We need to add all four of the ones Netlify provided us, so you can just click on “Add Nameserver” to add two more, and then click on the green tick mark.
Now that Namecheap is pointing to Netlify, we need to setup all our TXT and MX records on Netlify.
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Click on Add New Record…
We’ll now add in all of those records we saved in our text file….
Once you’ve added them all in, head to sites to select your project…
Now click on domain management. This is where we assign the domain to a specifc project we’re hosting.
Under production domains, click on “Add a domain”
Add your domain. Youll then be returned to the page telling you that Netlify is awaiting DNS confirmation…
This can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours, so you’ll need to be patient! Try refreshing the browser every now and again….
Eventually you’ll see a couple of green ticks (mine took around 10 minutes) and you can now type your domain into the browser and view your website!
If this series gets enough interest, I’ll write up part 3, where we’ll work on creating a fully-functional web-app using AI, which can eventually be converted to an app for IOS App Store and Google Play Store using Ionic Capacitor.
