I recently transitioned my site from GitHub’s freely hosted github.io domain to https://www.derekcroote.com after seeing how quick and inexpensive it was for my sister to create a beautiful portfolio website. This short post walks through the process.

Update: I now have a separate blog post on building and hosting a custom domain static website for free that uses Render for hosting rather than GitHub Pages because Render allows you more choice in the web app framework you use for static site generation, while still being free.

1. Purchase your Namecheap domain name.

I used Namecheap because of the price and default privacy settings.

2. Configure Namecheap DNS settings for GitHub Pages

Within the Namecheap Dashboard, select Manage next to the domain, then Advanced DNS. Under HOST RECORDS, adjust the CNAME Record to point your GitHub Pages domain (dcroote.github.io in this case). Note that the Host should be www if you’re intending on using the www subdomain.

Next, create A records, with @ for the Host, pointing to GitHub Pages servers. At the time of this writing, the A record Values were:

185.199.108.153
185.199.109.153
185.199.110.153
185.199.111.153

3. Configure the custom domain on GitHub

To use a custom domain, navigate to your GitHub Pages repo’s Settings then to Pages. Enter the domain in the Custom domain field and hit Save. This will trigger GitHub’s DNS check and TLS certificate provisioning, which can take up to an hour. Once complete, I suggest checking the Enforce HTTPS box.

That’s it!

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This work by Derek Croote is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0