How to connect a custom domain to your website

You connect your own domain by adding a small set of DNS records at whichever company manages your domain's DNS, then telling your website host which domain to answer for. DNS, the domain name system, is the internet's address book. When someone types your domain, their browser looks it up, and the records you add point that lookup at the servers that hold your site.

For most websites, the job comes down to two records. The bare domain, example.com, gets an A record, which points the name at a numeric server address. The www version gets a CNAME record, which points one name at another. Your host tells you the values to use. You sign in wherever your DNS is managed, which is usually the registrar where you bought the domain, such as GoDaddy or Namecheap, unless you've moved your DNS to a service like Cloudflare. Then you add or replace those two records and wait for the change to spread. Most changes show up within an hour, though some take up to a day.

Every major website builder offers a version of this. Some ask you to type the records in yourself. Some can sign in to popular registrars and add them for you. Where people usually get stuck is the part after the records go in. The bare domain works but www doesn't, or the reverse. An old record still points at a previous host. The security certificate that makes the site load over HTTPS hasn't been issued yet. Or the site loads on the new domain while its links, sitemap, and search listings still point at the old address.

A good result is simple to describe. Both example.com and www.example.com open your site over HTTPS. One of them is the main address and the other redirects to it permanently. And everything on the site, from its canonical links to its sitemap, names that main address.

Kite handles that whole job for a website it hosts. It sets up the records for both versions of your domain, confirms each one reaches the site, and moves the site's links and analytics onto the new address.

Start by telling Kite which domain you want your site to use:

"Put our new site on acmeplumbing.com. We bought the domain at GoDaddy a few years ago."

Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. If it built your site, it already knows the site and whether it has been published. A site needs to be published once before a domain can be connected to it, because publishing is what puts the site on the servers your domain will point at. If yours hasn't been published yet, Kite tells you so and can publish it when you approve.

The one decision that's yours to make is which version of the domain should be the main address, and you make it when you type the domain into the settings. Most companies pick either the bare domain or the www version and never think about it again. Whichever you choose, the other one redirects to it.

You make the connection itself from the site's domain settings in Kite, where you choose to connect a domain you already own and enter it. You'll need to be able to sign in to the account where your domain's DNS is managed. If you'd rather use a separate address for the site, such as shop.acmeplumbing.com, you can connect a subdomain instead.

Custom domains are included in Kite's paid plans and in trials, and each site uses one custom domain.

A Kite-hosted site needs one routing record for each version of your domain. The bare domain gets an A record with the host set to @, which stands for the domain itself, pointing at 76.76.21.21. The www version gets a CNAME record with the host set to www, pointing at cname.vercel-dns.com. A subdomain connection needs only a single CNAME record for that subdomain, pointing at the same address.

Two more kinds of records come along when they apply. Kite gives every team an email address, and your site's contact forms send email too. So the setup includes the records that let Kite send email from your domain: an SPF record, a DKIM key, and a mail record on a separate sending subdomain. Because those sit on their own subdomain, they leave the mail records for your existing inbox, such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, exactly as they are. The setup can also include a verification record that lets Google Search Console confirm you own the domain, so Kite can read how your site performs in Google search.

The guided setup adds the records for you when it can, and shows you exactly what to type when it can't. After you enter your domain, the setup looks up where its DNS is managed. For many common providers, you sign in to that provider inside the setup window and approve the change, and the records go in automatically. When a provider isn't supported, the setup lists each record with its type, host, and value so you can add them in your provider's DNS settings yourself.

If your domain already has an A record or a www record pointing at an old website, the new records replace them. That's the moment the domain stops showing your old site and starts showing the new one, so it's worth timing the switch for when your new site is ready.

Kite checks with the hosting platform that the domain is attached to your site and that its ownership is confirmed. Usually, the routing records are proof enough. If the domain was previously claimed by another hosting account, which can happen when an earlier site was hosted on the same platform, the platform asks for one more proof of ownership in the form of a TXT record. Kite shows you that record and asks the platform to check again as soon as you've added it, so the domain moves from pending to connected without you having to restart anything.

Kite connects the two versions of your domain as a pair, and it doesn't call the job finished until both of them reach your site. The address you entered becomes the main one, and the other is set up as a permanent redirect to it. A permanent redirect tells search engines that the main address is the real one, so the two versions don't compete with each other in search results.

The main address counts as connected as soon as its own records check out. The second version is tracked on its own. If its record is missing, or still points somewhere else, Kite keeps checking and lists the exact record you need to add for it. It only marks the pair complete once the second version is attached, verified, redirecting with a permanent redirect, and actually reaching the site.

The security certificate for your domain is issued automatically once the DNS records point at your site, and Kite confirms the domain answers over HTTPS before it sends visitors from the old address to the new one. Until then, the site keeps working at its Kite address, so visitors never land on a broken page during the switch.

Once your domain is connected, Kite makes it the site's address everywhere that matters. It writes the domain into the site's files where the site refers to its own address, and it updates the site's published URL, so the domain shows as live in Kite without a separate publish. The canonical links on every page and the URLs that appear when someone shares a page are built from the site's address, so they now name your domain. The next publish also points the sitemap line in your site's robots.txt file at the domain.

Kite also sets up its built-in website analytics for the new hostname and republishes the live version of the site so tracking continues on the domain. Your published content stays as it was, and any unpublished changes keep waiting for your approval. Finally, the site's temporary Kite address starts redirecting to your domain. That way, anyone who saved the old link and any search engine that already found it end up at the right place.

When the connection is done, Kite tells you the domain is live and which address is the main one. If anything is still pending, such as the second version of the domain or the email-sending records, it names the record that's missing and where to add it. DNS changes can take up to 24 hours to reach everyone, so a record you added a few minutes ago may simply need more time.

From there, the site is ready for the work that depends on a real domain. Kite can track how the site appears in Google search and in AI answers, and it can send email from your own address once the email-sending records are verified.

When the connection is complete, your domain is the site's one address, and every version of it leads there.