Setup Existing GoDaddy Domain to Droplet

Heya @joselinevasquez,

You can absolutely keep using GoDaddy’s Nameservers and your configurations there and still point your Domain to your DigitalOcean Droplet.

All you need to do is update the root and www A record of your Domain to contain the IP of your Droplet and that it is.

Heya, @joselinevasquez

Yes, you can use your GoDaddy domain name with your DigitalOcean droplet. All you need to do is update your DNS settings to point to your droplet’s IP address. In case of just using it for your website then this will be the A record for the domain name.

We have a tutorial that covers the process which you can check here:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/dns/how-to/manage-records/#a-records

Also keep in mind that the DNS will need some time to update.

Regards

Hi there,

Yep, setting up an existing GoDaddy domain to point to a DigitalOcean Droplet while retaining certain configurations on GoDaddy is totally possible.

You’ll primarily need to update the DNS settings for your domain on GoDaddy to point to your DigitalOcean Droplet IP address. Here’s a general guide to help you through the process:

1. Get Your Droplet’s IP Address:

• Log into your DigitalOcean account.
• Find your Droplet and note down its public IP address.

2. Update DNS Settings on GoDaddy:

• Log in to your GoDaddy account.
• Go to your domain’s DNS Management page.
• You will need to change the A-Record to point to your Droplet’s IP address. Here’s how:
  • Find the A-Record for @ (which represents your root domain) and change its value to the IP address of your Droplet. Or if you want to point a subdomain name, just create an A record for that specific subdomain.
  • If you have subdomains or other records (like CNAME, MX for mail services), update them as necessary based on your setup requirements.

Once you make the change, keep in mind that DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to fully propagate worldwide, although it’s often much quicker.

Also, if you are going to only host your website at DigitalOcean, and if there are specific DNS configurations or services (like email hosting) that you want to keep on GoDaddy, do not change their respective DNS records. Basically, only modify the records that are necessary for pointing your web traffic to your DigitalOcean Droplet.

After making the changes, you can use tools like ping or nslookup from your command line to verify that your domain is pointing to the new IP address. Or you can use this site here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tools/dns

Hope that this helps!

Best,

Bobby