June 27, 2023
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What are DNS Settings?
In this blog post you learned how to buy a Google Domain for your website. After buying a domain you also need to connect it to your Showit website and this is how that works.
In order to connect your Domain to Showit you need to configure the DNS settings. DNS stands for Domain Name System and is a system that “lets you connect to websites by matching human-readable domain names with the unique ID of the server where a website is stored” (Beginner’s Guide for WordPress). If you’re interested in learning more about DNS settings, feel free to read the complete technical explanation here.
Where to find your DNS Settings in Google Domains
Go to domains.google and log into your account. On the left under MY DOMAINS (“Meine Domains”) you will be able to see your Google Domain. Click MANAGE (“Verwalten”):
Then click DNS on the left and scroll down until you find CUSTOM RESOURCE RECORDS. Here, you’ll want to add the the 3 records that are necessary to point your domain to your Showit website.
However, before you do you there is something important you should know! The DNS settings depend on whether or not you have a Showit blog or if you don’t:
Important: DNS Settings with/without a Showit Blog
If you are planning on having a blog embedded within your Showit site you need to request the blog setup BEFORE you connect your domain to Showit! How you can do that is explained in this article. Once the Showit team set up your blog they will send you an email with your personal IP-address that you need to input into Google Domains.
If you DON’T have a blog you will be using Showit’s universal IP-address, the one I am using in this blog post. So basically, I am going to explain you how to set up the site pretending I don’t want a blog.
Custom Resource Records
So, we are in DNS > CUSTOM RESOURCE RECORDS (“Benutzerdefinierte Einträge”). Here, you want to input some data into the 4 fields. We are going to do this 3 times with 3 different sets of data.
What to input into the first Line
Hostname: @ (I’ve had clients where the “@” didn’t work but I simply left the hostname blank and it had the same effect.)
Type: A
TTL: 1H (or 3600)
Data: 75.101.134.27 (= Showit’s universal IP-address)
Then click the blue ADD button.
What to input into the second Line
Hostname: *
Type: A
TTL: 1H (or 3600)
Data: 75.101.134.27 (same number as before!)
What to input into the third Line
Hostname: www
Type: CNAME
TTL: 1H (or 3600)
Data: your domain name (e.g. maca-webdesign.com)
Once you input all of your data you will end up with something like this:
Set your Domain in Showit
Once everything is setup in Google Domains go ahead and jump over to your Showit account and log in. In the top left corner you will see CONNECT YOUR DOMAIN:
Click on EDIT next to CUSTOM DOMAIN:
Now, your new domain is available and you can select it and click on save. And this is all you need to do. Now you can finally publish your website simply by clicking PUBLISH in the top right corner and your website will be published to your domain.
SSL Certificate
Once you publish your website you might notice a notification next to your website URL saying “Not secure”. You don’t want that of course because it might keep people from visiting your website. So, the last small step to take is to open the chat in the bottom right corner of your Showit account and to ask the friendly Showit support team to add an SSL certificate to your website. This will usually not take more than a few hours to a day.
