Connect a domain name to your AI website

You connect a domain name to your AI website by making the DNS of that domain point to your hosting. With us you do that with one change: you set two nameservers that we give you at your registrar. After that your site runs on your own domain, with SSL included.

If you made your site with Lovable, Bolt or Claude, it is probably running on an address of that tool right now. That is fine for a test, but for your business card you want your own name. Below is what happens and how to do it.

Domain, hosting and DNS: who does what

Three terms, three roles.

• Domain name: the address, for example yourcompany.com. You rent it from a registrar, per year.
• Hosting: the place where the files of your site live. With us that means static files, PHP sites and WordPress, behind Cloudflare.
• DNS: the phone book that says which address belongs to which server. The details for mail are kept here too.

So connecting means: recording in the DNS of your domain that visitors go to your hosting. That is all. It sounds technical, but it is a few fields in a screen of your registrar.

A tip if your site is currently with an AI tool: that tool’s custom domain feature points your domain to that tool’s hosting. If you want the site to run with us, the domain points to us. How to get the files out of such a tool is explained in exporting your AI website. For Lovable there is a dedicated route: moving a Lovable website to your own domain.

The two ways to connect

Way 1: nameservers to us

The domain stays at your current registrar. We give you two Cloudflare nameservers. You enter them once at your registrar. From that moment your DNS lives in Cloudflare and you can view and adjust the records in your portal. For you this is the smallest step, because your registrar and your invoice stay the same.

Way 2: register or move the domain through us

If your domain is not bought yet, or you want everything in one place, we arrange the registration or the move. A .nl domain costs € 4.50 for the first year and € 9 per year after that. Moving an existing domain goes through an authorisation code from your current registrar. We help you with that on WhatsApp or by mail.

Which one do you choose? If you already have mail or a webshop on the domain with another provider, way 1 is the calmest, because nothing moves except the DNS. If you are just starting, way 2 is the shortest.

Step by step: changing nameservers

1. Order your plan. Choose Website for € 9 per month and enter your domain. If you need mail too, look at the pricing first, because mail is not part of the Website plan.
2. Get your two nameservers. After your order, the two Cloudflare nameservers for your domain are in your portal under Domains. Each domain gets its own pair, so copy them exactly.
3. Log in at your registrar. In the domain management, look for “nameservers” or “DNS servers”. The name differs per registrar.
4. Replace the nameservers. Remove the old ones, enter the two new ones and save. Do not leave any old nameservers in place, because then part of your visitors will still get the old answer.
5. Wait for propagation. See below for how long that takes.
6. Check the result. See the last step below.

If your site is not with us yet, send us the export or the GitHub link. We put it online as part of the free migration, even before you change the nameservers. That way the site is already waiting at the moment the domain switches.

What happens to your old site and mail

As long as you do not change the nameservers, everything stays as it was. Your old site stays online and your mail keeps arriving where it arrives now. So you decide the moment of switching.

At the moment of switching, the DNS moves to us. That is why the following happens beforehand:

• your site is already ready, so visitors see the new version straight after the switch;
• we make a copy of your current DNS records in the new zone, and check it before the nameservers switch;
• that copy includes the mail records (MX, SPF and the like) and your subdomains, such as shop.

Go through the records in your portal once more after the switch, especially if you use a service you set up a long time ago. Do you have mail with another provider and want to keep it? That is possible: the mail records then stay as they are. If you want mail with us, read mail on your own domain next to your AI website.

How long does it take

DNS changes do not become visible everywhere at the same time, because internet providers remember answers for a while. In practice it is usually done within a few hours, sometimes it takes up to 24 hours. During that period one person sees the old site and another the new one. That is part of how DNS works.

So plan the switch for a quiet moment, for example in the evening. Open your site on your phone over mobile data if you want to see what a visitor who is not on your wifi sees.

With or without www

Visitors sometimes type yourcompany.com and sometimes www.yourcompany.com. Both should end up at the same site. We point both addresses to your site. If you want one address to be the main address, so that search engines see one address, let us know. The variant without www is shorter and fits a business card better.

Do you use subdomains, for example blog.yourcompany.com or booking.yourcompany.com for an external service? Check after the switch that they are still in the list of DNS records. A subdomain that is missing only shows when someone clicks an old link.

Checking with a DNS lookup

A DNS lookup is a free tool where you enter a domain and see which records belong to it. Search for “DNS lookup” and pick one. Check three things:

1. NS records: are the two Cloudflare nameservers you received from us listed here?
2. A record or CNAME: does yourcompany.com point to an address, and www too?
3. MX records: are the mail servers you want to use listed here?

You can also do it in a terminal:

dig NS jouwbedrijf.nl +short
dig MX jouwbedrijf.nl +short

If you see the new nameservers, the switch worked. Then open https://jouwbedrijf.nl in your browser. The padlock appears by itself: you do not have to request or install a certificate. It can take a little while after the switch before the certificate is ready.

If it does not work straight away

Sometimes a registrar only lets a change through after a confirmation mail. Sometimes an old www record is still there that points to the AI tool. You can spot that quickly with a screenshot of your DNS screen. Send us a WhatsApp message with your domain and what you see, and we will look along with you. The whole route from AI tool to own domain is in putting your AI website online, and the page for Lovable shows how we work with that tool.