How do I connect my own domain to a website I built in Votel?

Votel does not sell domain names. Buy your domain from any provider you like (for example Cloudflare, GoDaddy or Namecheap), then connect it to your website. Website hosting is included with your plan, so the domain is all you need to bring. You need access to the domain's DNS settings.

1. Go to Websites and open your website project. A site the AI built appears there as a project. Check the pages in the website builder and publish the site.
2. Click the Domains tab at the top of the builder and click Add domain.
3. Type your domain without https:// or slashes, for example yourcompany.com. Use your real root domain, not the app subdomain you log in on. You can also use a subdomain of a domain you own, for example cleaning.yourdomain.com for a niche.
4. Votel shows the DNS records to add. They connect both the version without www and the www version, typically an A record with host @ pointing to the IP address shown for the domain itself and a CNAME record for www. Log in where your domain's DNS is managed and open its DNS settings (often called advanced DNS). If your DNS is on Cloudflare, make the changes in Cloudflare. Add the records exactly as shown.
5. Remove the old conflicting records that pointed the domain to your previous website host; do not just add the new ones. Votel warns you if old records are still there. Leave other records that are fine alone, such as mail records or the record for your app subdomain.
6. Go back to the website builder, open the Design tab and Pages, and save the page (Save, top right).
7. Wait for the change to take effect. It can take a few minutes up to some hours because of caching. Votel detects the A record first and then the CNAME. Come back to the Domains tab to check the status, or use a DNS lookup tool to see whether the domain is hooked up yet.

Once the domain points to Votel, anyone who visits it sees your Votel website. Until then the site stays on its preview link, which you can share. If your domain still shows your old site (for example WordPress), the domain has not been added in the Domains tab yet or the DNS records have not been updated. If the domain shows Not secure or a DNS error after you connect it, give the DNS time to update and check the Domains tab again.

The domain takes over the whole website. Pages that are not in the new site no longer exist at that domain, so import or copy any old pages you still need. You can tell the AI assistant to build the other pages and reuse the existing booking widget; it can crawl the old site to get the widget code.

A domain on its own shows nothing: you need a website for it. The easiest way is to ask the AI assistant to build one, or create a blank website and assemble it from prebuilt blocks such as a hero section or a pricing block.

You can connect as many domain names as you need and have more than one site: use a subdomain or a different domain for each. Connect your agency domain to your agency website, not to a niche site. For your agency's own marketing website, use your root domain: the site that says what your agency does, the niche you serve and the results you provide. For a white label, the back end where you and your clients log in uses a separate app subdomain such as app.yourdomain.com, which is set up separately.

The AI assistant can help you with the DNS records. If you need help, click Live support and choose Talk to a person. Connecting domains is something the support team does all the time. If a domain has baggage (you cannot unlock it, or it was used for something else), domains are cheap, so it is usually faster to register a new one.