How to assign your domain to your Google Cloud Platform using GoDaddy

🎯 What’s the goal? Assign your domain to your GCP Hosting account.	⚠️ Why does it matter? So your domain name redirects to the server hosting your website.
🏁 What’s the result? Your domain name points to your GCP account.	⌚ When do you do this? Ideally as soon you put your website online, only once.
✅ Any special requirements? You need to have your own domain name (SOP005) and GCP Server.	🙋‍♂️Who should do it? Owner of the website or the person in charge of managing it.

👉 Where this is done: On godaddy.com and in Google Cloud Platform Admin Console.

⏳ How long will this take? about 10 minutes

 Let’s get started, in 15-min you will be able to access your website not using its IP address but with its unique domain name.

Environment setup:

• We recommend that you use Google Chrome browser to navigate the web.
• Access to your Google Cloud Admin Panel,
• Access to your GoDaddy account.

Creating a DNS Zone for your Google Cloud

• Go to Google Cloud.
• Click on “Go to console”.

• Log In with your Google Account.

• Click on the burger “menu button” in the upper left corner.

• From the menu, choose “Network services”, then “Cloud DNS”.

• Click on “Create zone”.

• Make sure that “Zone type” is set to “Public”.

• Create a “Zone name”. It should be unique for any project. We recommend “yourdomainname-dns-zone” name as it is self-explaining.

• In the “DNS name” box you should type “yourdomainname.com”.

• “DNSSEC” should be “Off”.

• Then click on “Create”.

• You will be presented with a list of “Record sets” you have just created.

• Now you need to create an “A” record. Click on “Add a record set”.

• Set “Resource Record Type”(1) to “A”, “TTL”(2) to “5” and “TTL Unit”(3) to “minutes”. In the “IPv4 Address” box you need to put your Google Cloud website IP address. We will show you where to find it in the next step. 

Getting your IP address from Google Cloud

• Open another tab in your web browser.
• Go to your Google Claud Panel. 
• Click on the burger “menu button” in the top left corner.

• In the menu navigate to “Compute Engine”, then click on “VM instances”.

• And there is your IP address. Copy it and go back to the tab with the record sets editor opened.

• After you retrieve your IP address, paste it in the “IPv4 Address” box and click on “Create”.

• And there are your “Nameservers”. You can recognise it by the “NS” Type in the “Type” column. Write them down as you will need them in the next steps.

Changing GoDaddy nameservers

• Go to GoDaddy.com and log in to your account.
• Click on “Sign In”.

• Enter your account data and press on “Sign In” or choose to sign in with “Google” if you used it to create an account on GoDaddy.com.

• After you sign in you should see the domain that you bought. Click on “DNS” to access DNS settings.

• Now you should see the “Nameservers” page. Click on “Change”.

• Then “Enter my own nameservers (advanced)”.

• Choose “I’ll use my own nameservers”.

• Now you should see two boxes called “Nameserver 1” and “Nameserver 2”. 

• Now you need to enter “Nameservers”, you write down from your Google Cloud. Simply put first of them in the “Nameserver 1” box and the second one in the “Nameserver 2” box.
  
• If there is no box for the rest of “Nameservers” click on “Add Nameserver” and it will add another box.

• Click on “Save” after you add all “Nameservers”.

• Reload the page.
  
• Now try to go to your domain by typing it on the internet browser.

You’re all set now and your audience can finally access your website using its own unique domain name. This is a major step in building your online brand.