Publish to the web

Open a web project and choose Publish. Buildr takes the latest version of your app, copies it to a hosting account, and gives it a public address ending in netlify.app. Anyone with the link can open it, and search engines are allowed to find it — it is your product, not a preview.

Publishing costs nothing in credits.

Once a site is online, it stays exactly as published. Changes you make afterwards live in your workspace until you choose Republish, so you decide when visitors see new work.

Taking a site offline removes the public address and detaches any custom domain. Your project, its history and its files are untouched, and you can publish again whenever you like.

Custom domains are part of the paid plans. Type a domain you already own — example.com or app.example.com, no https:// and no trailing path — and Buildr attaches it to your site.

Buildr looks at what you typed. A whole domain such as example.com is an apex: the www address becomes the site's main address and the bare domain is kept alongside it, so both work. A subdomain such as app.example.com is attached on its own: it becomes the site's main address and no www version is created.

There are two ways to connect it, and Buildr shows both. A domain can belong to only one project at a time.

For a whole domain, add two records where your domain's DNS is managed today: www as a CNAME pointing to your-site.netlify.app, and the bare domain as an ALIAS, ANAME or flattened CNAME pointing to apex-loadbalancer.netlify.com. If your provider cannot create an ALIAS at the bare domain — GoDaddy, for instance, has none — use an A record pointing to 75.2.60.5 instead. Buildr shows all three values with copy buttons.

For a subdomain, there is a single record: a CNAME on that subdomain pointing to your-site.netlify.app. No www version, no ALIAS and no A record are needed.

Most registrars ask for the name relative to your domain — @ for the domain itself, www, or app — not the full hostname. Buildr shows both forms for every record, so you can copy whichever your provider expects. The default TTL your registrar offers, such as half an hour, is fine.

If a record with the same name already exists — new domains are often parked with an A record on @ and a CNAME on www — edit or delete it first. Two records with the same name and different targets will not work.

Then choose Check now. Changes usually appear within a few hours and can take up to 24 to 48 hours.

Choose Set up Netlify nameservers and Buildr creates the DNS zone for your domain. Four nameserver addresses appear, with copy buttons.

Replace the nameservers at your registrar with those four. From then on the records are managed for you. Nameserver changes can take up to 48 hours. Removing the domain from Buildr also removes the zone it created.

A domain is only marked Active when two things are true: public DNS really answers with your site's address, and the security certificate covering the domain has been issued so visitors get https. Until both are done, the status stays at Records pending, DNS detected or Certificate provisioning — never Active.

Once Active, the custom domain becomes the main link shown for the project; the netlify.app address stays visible underneath.

Records not detected: check that the record name has no extra domain suffix, that no old A or CNAME record for the same name is left behind, and give the change time to spread.

Certificate still pending: the certificate is only requested once DNS answers correctly. Choose Check now again a little later.

Domain used elsewhere: the domain is attached to another site or account. Detach it there, then add it here again.

Web publishing runs through a hosting account that the owner of this workspace connects. Until that credential is added, the panel says so plainly, nothing is published and nothing is charged.