Buy your domain

We recommend Cloudflare. It sells domains at cost price, with no markup, and tomorrow's free hosting is on Cloudflare too, so everything stays in one place.

1. Go to cloudflare.com and create a free account. Use an email address you check often, because this is where renewal reminders go.
2. In your Cloudflare dashboard, look for Domain Registration, then Register Domains.
3. Type your first choice. If it's taken, try your backups.
4. Choose 1 year to start, turn on auto-renew, and pay.

If your ending isn't available at Cloudflare. Cloudflare doesn't sell every country's ending. If yours is missing (some country endings aren't offered), buy it from any registrar that shows a clear renewal price. The web version of this lesson explains how to connect it to Cloudflare afterwards: myformconnect.io/get-found/4

What not to pay for:

• "Premium" email bundles, website builders or "SEO packages" offered at checkout. You don't need them for this course.
• "Privacy protection" as a paid extra. Many registrars, including Cloudflare, include it free.
• Very cheap first-year prices with a high renewal price. Always check the renewal price.

One tip. Write down the date your domain renews and put a reminder in your calendar a month before. Losing a domain because a card expired is the most common website disaster, and the easiest to avoid.

Buttons in dashboards sometimes change names. If something looks different, the web version has current screenshots.

If your domain ending isn't sold by Cloudflare

Cloudflare doesn't sell every country's ending. If yours is missing, buy the domain from any registrar that shows a clear renewal price. Then:

1. Add the site to Cloudflare (Add a site) using your domain.
2. Cloudflare will show you two nameservers.
3. At the registrar where you bought the domain, change the nameservers to those two Cloudflare nameservers.

DNS changes can take up to 24 hours. Once they finish, continue with the rest of the course using Cloudflare as usual.