Your domain and hosting in plain English.

What a domain is

Your domain is your web address, like doyleroofing.ie. People type it, or tap it in a search result, to reach your website. You rent it for a year at a time and renew it.

What hosting is

Hosting is the computer that keeps your website's files and shows them to visitors. The domain is the address and the host is the building.

You do not need to buy traditional web hosting. I put your site on a modern host such as Cloudflare Pages or Vercel, which suits a website like yours. I tell you which one before we start.

Costs, so there are no surprises: this guide is included in the service. If you would like me to buy and connect a domain you choose, in your own name, that help is €45. Fees paid to the domain company and to a host are separate and are never added to your website price.

How to choose a domain name

Short, easy to say on the phone and easy to spell. Usually your business name, sometimes with your town or trade.

• Good: doyleroofing.ie, brightsidecleaning.ie
• Avoid hyphens and numbers if you can
• Check it is free before you fall in love with it: your registrar will tell you when you search
• Have a second choice ready

.ie or .com

A .ie address tells customers you are Irish and local. A .com works anywhere and is the safe fallback.

• .ie needs proof of a real connection to Ireland. One document is usually enough: a CRO number or Irish VAT number for a business, or an Irish passport, driving licence or bank statement for a person.
• The IE Domain Registry says applications are usually processed within 3 hours, Monday to Friday. If something is missing they email you what to send.
• .com has no such check and is live straight away.

If you already have a CRO number, enter it when you register and approval is automatic. Details: weare.ie

How to buy your domain

Buy it from a registrar, a company that sells domains, inside your own account. Use your own name and business email.

• Blacknight (Irish): sells .ie. Their site shows .ie from about €5.99 for the first year.
• Register365 (Irish): sells .ie and .com. At the time of writing their first-year offers were €2.99 for .ie and €4.99 for .com, before VAT.
• Cloudflare Registrar: sells .com at cost with no markup, but it does not sell .ie.
• Namecheap: well known for .com. I have not confirmed that it sells .ie, so choose an Irish registrar for .ie.

For an ordinary Irish small business I suggest a .ie from Blacknight or Register365. Prices were checked on 13 November 2026 and first-year offers often rise at renewal, so look at the renewal price at checkout.

• Turn on auto-renew so the address never expires by accident
• Save your login somewhere safe and never share the password

How to connect it to your website

Connecting means telling the internet that your domain should show your website. There are two ways. I will tell you which one fits your site.

Way 1, nameservers (Cloudflare Pages). You create a free Cloudflare account with your business email and add me as a member so I can set things up: open your account settings, find Members and invite the email I send you. I give you two nameservers. At your registrar open the domain, find Nameservers, choose custom nameservers and paste mine exactly. Turn DNSSEC off first if it is on.

Way 2, records (Vercel). I send you the exact values shown in my project. At your registrar open the domain's DNS settings and add an A record for the plain address and a CNAME record for www. Copy the values exactly, including any full stop at the end.

Menus are named differently at each registrar, and companies change them. Register365 calls it Control Panel, then Change Nameservers. Namecheap calls it Domain List, Manage, Nameservers. If you cannot find it, send me a screenshot and I will tell you what to press. Never send your password.

How DNS works

DNS is the phone book of the internet. It stores a few short lines called records that say where your website and your email live.

• Nameservers say which company looks after your records.
• A record points a name such as doyleroofing.ie to a number address.
• CNAME record points one name, such as www, to another name.
• Propagation is the wait while the change spreads around the internet. Often minutes, sometimes up to 24 hours, and changes to nameservers can take up to 48.
• SSL certificate is what gives your site the padlock and the https:// start. My hosts issue it automatically once the domain is connected.

Do not delete existing records unless you know what they do. Some of them keep your email working. Before you change anything, take a screenshot of the records that are there. Records do not move on their own when you change nameservers, so I will copy over any you need.

How to check everything works

• Open your address on your phone using mobile data, not your home wifi
• Check the padlock beside the address and that it starts with https://
• Try the address with and without www
• Send a test enquiry and check it reaches your WhatsApp
• If it does not work yet, wait a few hours. Waiting is the most common fix.

A free tool such as dnschecker.org shows whether the change has spread. If you are unsure what it says, send me a screenshot.

Why you stay in control

Keep the domain in an account that belongs to you. It is your business address, and whoever holds the account controls it. If you work with someone else in future, you can move it with you.

• Add me as a member instead of sharing a password, and remove me whenever you like
• Keep renewal reminders going to an email you read
• If you chose for me to hold it, I move it into your name for free whenever you ask