GitHub Pages with a Custom Domain

My website used to be hosted on GitHub Pages. When it came to hooking up my domain, I found the instructions a little confusing in places. So here’s what worked for me…

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Step 1 of 5

If you haven’t already done so, setup a GitHub account and buy a domain from your preferred domain name registrar.

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Step 2 of 5

Follow the instructions to setup GitHub Pages. This is fairly straight forward:

• Create a new repository called [your-github-username].github.io
• Clone the repository and create an index page
• Push to GitHub.

Your new site will be live at [your-github-username].github.io

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Step 3 of 5

Go to your new GitHub Pages repository settings, and add your domain:

[Your GitHub Pages Repository] > Settings > Custom domain

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Step 4 of 5

Go to the DNS settings of your domain and add/amend the following two A Records:

192.30.252.153
192.30.252.154

… and a CNAME for the apex (www) pointing to:

[your-github-username].github.io

When you’re done it should look something like this:

Screenshot from iwantmyname.com DNS panel

Bear in mind that DNS settings can take some time to propagate.

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Step 5 of 5

Add a CNAME file to your website’s root folder:

• Create a new .txt file using your preferred text editor software.
• Add just your domain as the content. For example:

www.davidhughes.co

• Save the file as CNAME.txt
• Add this to your website’s root folder, and push the change to GitHub.

Now, when you visit your domain, this should point to your GitHub Pages index file.

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I hope you find this Tutorial helpful. If you're having any problem, I would be happy to help. You can leave a comment below, send me a message on Twitter or use the contact form here.