Connect your own domain or get a new one
Put your website on your own domain: connect one you own with DNS records, or register a new one in your name, free for the first year.
- Who can do this
- The account owner only
Your site starts at a MakeHay address. Once your own domain is live, it becomes the address, and the MakeHay address forwards to it for 30 days, then stops.
Go to Settings › Website and pick Settings under Site. Address is at the top.
Connect a domain you own
- Step 1: Click Connect a domain you own.
- Step 2: Type the domain, like www.example.com, and click Connect.
- Step 3: Sign in where your domain's DNS is managed, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace or Cloudflare, and add the records MakeHay shows, with the same Type, Name and Value.
- Step 4: Back in MakeHay, click Check now. When the domain shows Connected, the site is live on it.
Good to know: DNS changes can take up to a day. Until then the domain shows Waiting for DNS. Email on your domain keeps working.
Get a new domain
- Step 1: Click Get a new domain.
- Step 2: Type a name and click Search, or leave the box empty for ideas from your business name.
- Step 3: Click Choose beside a name marked free for the first year.
- Step 4: Check the contact details. The domain is registered in your name, so use your own email.
- Step 5: Click the button that says Register and your domain name.
- Step 6: Open the email the registrar sends and confirm it within 15 days, or the domain is suspended.
MakeHay pays the first year. Only names under $50 a year can be chosen. From the second year the domain renews at the price shown when you chose it, charged to the card on your MakeHay account about a month before the renewal date.
Good to know: If that charge isn't paid by 3 days before the renewal date, MakeHay switches renewal off and the domain expires on its renewal date. MakeHay emails you when it charges and if the charge fails, again 14 days before the renewal date if it's still unpaid, and when renewal is switched off. Paying the invoice before the renewal date switches renewal back on.
Tip: To change your MakeHay address, click Change beside it, type the new one and click Save address. Links to the old address stop working at once.