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Hook your netlify site with custom domain from GoDaddy in under 2 minutes

A quick guide to connect your GoDaddy domain to your Netlify site without the fluff

by Siddhant Varma 3 min read
netlify godaddy domain deployment

If you’re an engineer like me who spends days or weeks thinking about that new project but never gets their lazy weekend ass to deploy them, this will be a super helpful guide for you. You probably built a portfolio or personal blog somewhere but the pain of conencting your website to your custom domain made it a half-baked project.

Last week after I finished building a custom blogging website using Bolt in under 20 minutes, I got too ambitious a bought a $10 custom domain to publish my website on my own domain. While the Netlify docs are as amazing as they could be, GoDaddy’s default website added a ton of friction into hooking my netlify site with my GoDaddy domain.

After tinkering with this problem for full 3 days, I took a heavy breathe and asked Claude (oh, what a time to be alive) and it helped my hook my netlify site to GoDaddy in under - wait for it (drumrolls, please) - 2 minutes. Yes, exactly under 2 minutes.

Okay enough of the monolgue, ;et’s get this done quickly and painlessly.

What you’ll need

  • Your Netlify site up and running
  • Access to your GoDaddy account
  • ☕ Coffee (optional, but recommended)

Step 1: Add your domain to Netlify

  1. Head over to your Netlify dashboard
  2. Click on your site
  3. Go to Site settings → Domain management
  4. Click Add custom domain
  5. Type in your domain name (like mycoolsite.com) and hit Add domain

Step 2: The GoDaddy Part

Log into your GoDaddy account and:

  1. Go to My Domains and find your domain
  2. Click on DNS or Manage Domains → DNS
  3. Here’s the important part - you need to add two records:

For your root domain (mycoolsite.com):

  • Find and remove any existing A records and CNAME records. The existing A and CNAME records point to your GoDaddy’s Default Website (The useless coming soon page)

  • Add a new A record:

    • Type: A
    • Host: @ (or leave blank)
    • Points to: 75.2.60.5
    • TTL: 1 hour

For the www version (www.mycoolsite.com):

  • Add a CNAME record:
    • Type: CNAME
    • Host: www
    • Points to: your-netlify-site-name.netlify.app
    • TTL: 1 hour

Step 3: Wait (but not for long!)

DNS changes typically take 5-30 minutes to propagate. While you wait:

  • ✅ Double-check your records
  • 🚫 Make sure you’ve removed any GoDaddy “coming soon” pages
  • 🍵 Finish that coffee you made earlier. Hey if you made it till here, you deserve that doze of caffeine

That’s it! 🎉

Your site should be live with your custom domain in no time. If you’re still having issues after an hour:

  1. Verify your DNS records match exactly what’s shown above
  2. Check if you have any domain forwarding enabled in GoDaddy
  3. Clear your browser cache and try again

Happy deploying! 🚀

P.S. Want to check if your DNS has propagated? Pop over to whatsmydns.net and enter your domain. It’s a neat tool to see how your domain is resolving across the world!