Module 4 · Understand your setup: GitHub, Vercel & your domain
Your domain & DNS, explained simply
Your domain is your web address — yourbusiness.com. And DNS is the behind-the-scenes system that points that address at your live site. You’ll almost never touch either, but here’s what they are so nothing about your website is a mystery.
What is a domain?
A domain is the name people type to reach you, like yourbusiness.com. You buy it (about $12/year) from a “registrar” — companies like Cloudflare, Namecheap, or Porkbun — and it’s yours to keep as long as you renew it.
What is DNS?
DNS is like the internet’s phone book. It’s a small set of settings that says “when someone types yourbusiness.com, send them to the site hosted over here (on Vercel).” Those settings are called DNS records. Setting them once is what connects your nice domain name to your actual website.
If we built your site, we’ve already connected your domain and configured your DNS so yourbusiness.com loads your site with a secure padlock. You own the domain, and there is nothing you need to do here. Please leave the DNS settings alone — changing them is the one thing that can knock your live site offline, and it’s the only part of this whole course we’d ask you not to experiment with. Everything else, tinker away.
Bringing your own site? Connecting a domain
If you still need to point a domain at your Vercel site, it’s a few minutes and Claude can guide the confusing part. In Vercel you open your project → Settings → Domains → add your domain, and Vercel shows you the exact records to enter at your registrar (usually an A record and a CNAME). The trick that makes it painless:
Let Claude read your DNS screen
I'm connecting my domain to Vercel. Here's a screenshot of my registrar's DNS settings page, and here are the records Vercel is asking me to add: [ paste or screenshot the records ]. Please tell me exactly what to put in each box, in plain language. I'm on [ name your registrar, e.g. Namecheap ].
DNS changes can take a few minutes to a couple of hours to spread across the internet. If a freshly connected domain isn’t working after 15 minutes, give it an hour before worrying — it’s almost always just waiting.
You understand the whole chain: your folder, GitHub, Vercel, and your domain. You know what’s already set up for you and what to leave alone. Now let’s actually publish a change and watch it go live.
Worried you might have changed a DNS setting you shouldn’t have? Don’t panic. Tell Claude: “I think I may have changed a DNS setting by mistake — can you help me check whether my live site is still working and what the settings should be?” If Evolvv set up your domain, you can also just email us.