Introduction
Setup Time: 10 minutes
First of all, you can’t purchase a domain from Cloudways directly, as it doesn’t offer domain registration services. If you don’t already own a domain, you’ll need to purchase one from NameCheap or another registrar before you can start this process.
In this article, you will learn how to add a domain name to your WordPress application on the Cloudways Platform. Lets get started.
Adding Your Domain Name
Step One
Toggle to the Servers section of your website dashboard. Here, take note of your server’s IP address. For the test server I created, for instance, the IP address is 138.68.XXX.152. I recommend copying your IP address to a note file — you’ll need it later on.
Step Two
Now, head back over to the Applications tab and select the application you just created. Next, select Domain Management from the left-hand menu. Then click the Blue Button (+ Add Domain). Enter your Domain Name such as www.cloudways.com.
Once you have added your Domain Name, you will have to make it a Primary as shown n the example below.
Step Three
Now, it starts getting a little more complicated. You’ll have to head over to your domain registrar (e.g., NameCheap) and add an A Record for the IP address you noted in Step One. The exact steps will depend on your registrar; however, we provide step-by-step guidance for Namecheap. Please click here to learn How to Add DNS A Records in NameCheap.
Once you’ve added your A record, you need to wait for the DNS changes to be propagated. You can try refresh your domain name after 10 – 20 minutes to check if it is live. If not, this can take up to 24-48 hours, although it’s usually a lot quicker.
That’s it. Once the changes have been propagated, you’ve successfully added a domain to your fresh WordPress installation. You can check that it’s been done correctly by visiting your website URL.
Conclusion
It is very straight forward until you get to adding your DNS records to point towards CloudWays hosting, if you feel stuck with another domain registrar follow Cloudways How to create an A-Record Guide.
