Custom Domain with Godaddy

I admit, I am new to setting up a custom domain with a provider. I have searched the forum and found a reference to my situation, but it was from 2019 and the information has changed layouts. I have purchased the domain I would like. I looked at the write.as document about what values need to be where, but honestly, I am not exactly sure which of these values with Godaddy match up.

  • Do I need to create a new A record and delete the current one? I am guessing so as this is a parked command? and not an actual IP address.

  • I am guessing I need to create an AAAA record?

  • Do I change the second CNAME to the me.writeas.com address and just delete the first one?

Sorry for the confusion, but trying to get this right. I setup a custom email with a provider, but honestly, the instructions were a bit more clear with respect to that service.

Thanks for the help and looking forward to continuing my writings with a new service.

Don’t delete any of those. The first CNAME record is redirecting the www. version of your site link to the version without it because www. is technically a subdomain. The second one, I’m not sure, offhand. Something to do with GoDaddy (I don’t have one of those in my DNS Records on Namecheap).

Anyways, it depends how you’re trying to set this up. Do you want it to be the top level (www.your.site) or a subdomain (blog.your.site)?

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Thanks for the quick reply.

I understand the difference between top and subdomains, but if I choose one now, can I change it to the other later? (Ie if I make it a top level, can I later change it to a subdomain?)

Thanks again.

I understand the difference between top and subdomains, but if I choose one now, can I change it to the other later? (Ie if I make it a top level, can I later change it to a subdomain?)

Yes. It’s all just a matter of changing the records.

EDIT: To be clear, if you self-host anything and it is locked to a specific address when you install it, you will need to change the address on its end, but that’s not difficult in most cases.

EDIT2: This doesn’t apply to Write.as, though. It would just apply to any other web software you might use that might lead to you wanting to change the domain for your Write.as blog at a later time. For Write.as, you’d just have to change the (sub)domain on the blog’s settings page and update the DNS record.

So let’s say I just make it a top level domain.

Delete the first A record and add the one for write.as IP address?

It says Parked in the Data entry for that first record, which I am guessing their backend uses to redirect all traffic to your domain to their generic parking page. So, if you just edit that so that it says 50.56.249.138 instead of Parked, it should work.

EDIT: Also remember to set your domain as a custom domain in the Write.as blog settings and remember that it may not update instantly.

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Yes, I do know to do that. I clicked on the help underneath that and those write.as values were shown to use for the records.

I am still fairly new to the custom domains and registrars so trying to fully understand the way records are done.

It also seems to be that each registrar has different information displayed, hence adding to my confusion.

@ahribellah thank you very much for the information. I updated the records with GoDaddy and all is working!

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