Custom domains
Put your own name on the door for 99¢ a month more. Point a domain you already own at your site, and the padlock is issued for you - we show you the exact two records to copy across.
How it works
The active part takes a couple of minutes. The rest is just DNS catching up.
In your dashboard, type in the domain you already own - any domain, from any registrar. No transfer, no change of registrar, no waiting on a transfer lock to clear.
We show the exact values, both pointing at your site's own address, with a Copy button beside each. Paste them into your registrar's DNS panel and save. The records themselves are listed in point a custom domain.
Usually minutes. DNS changes propagate through caches around the internet, so it can occasionally take longer - up to a day in rare cases - depending on your registrar and how long your previous records were cached.
The moment it resolves, a certificate is issued for the new domain, covering apex and www alike. Full detail on the SSL page.
Apex or www
Point the wrong one and only half your visitors land on your site. A domain has two common front doors: the bare apex (yourdomain.com, sometimes called the root or naked domain) and the www subdomain (www.yourdomain.com). Point either one at us and we redirect the other to it automatically, so a visitor lands in the same place no matter which they typed or which one an old link used. Skip the DNS record for one of them entirely, though, and that address simply won't resolve - it's the single most common setup mistake, and a one-line fix once you notice it.
Any registrar
The domain doesn't need to come from us, and it never has to move. GoDaddy, Namecheap, a registrar built into somewhere you used before, a domain you registered years ago and forgot about - any of them work exactly the same way, because pointing a domain is just a couple of DNS records, not a transfer of ownership. You keep paying whoever you bought the domain from for the domain itself; the 99¢ add-on here covers running your site on it, padlock included. Don't have a domain yet? Search for one here and we register it in your name and connect it for you.
Changing your mind later is just as simple. Moving a domain to point somewhere else means changing those same two DNS records back - nothing about your domain registration changes, and nothing on our side needs cancelling first. The domain is yours the whole time; we're just where it happens to point today.
Common mistakes
A previous host's A record or CNAME still sitting in your DNS panel will conflict with the new one. Remove the old entry - don't just add ours alongside it.
If your domain's nameservers still point at a previous host's DNS service, editing records in your registrar's panel won't do anything - the records that matter live wherever the nameservers point.
DNS changes aren't instant everywhere at once. Give it the better part of a day before assuming something's wrong, especially if the domain was in active use somewhere else recently.
What it costs
The free address isn't a downgrade - it's the same site, the same padlock, the same speed. Your own domain is 99¢ more a month on a yearly plan ($2.99 on a monthly one), added to the site you're already running. Want more names on the same site? Domain Plus adds up to 10 more for $2.99 a month billed yearly.
The add-on renews on the same terms as the base plan, at the price shown at checkout, and it can be removed the same way it was added - a setting, not a contract.
Worth knowing
Not at all. The free you.lemonhosted.com address gets the same site, the same padlock and the same speed - a domain of your own is simply for when you want your own name on the door.
Yes, any time - update the DNS records to wherever else you want the domain to point. Nothing about owning the domain changes, and there's no lock-in on our side.
Not for a domain you already own - you keep renewing it with whoever you bought it from, and the 99¢ here covers pointing it at your site and issuing SSL for it. No domain yet? Search for one here and we register it in your name and connect it for you.
Several routes in, including one where your AI assistant does the whole job. See how publishing works, or start with what every site includes.