Free guide for shop owners
How to buy a domain on Namecheap and set up its DNS
Your domain (smithappliance.com) is your address on the internet — the website, your business email, even your text-message links all build on it. Buying one takes 10 minutes and ~$10/year. Here's the purchase, the upsells to skip, and the exact DNS records for your website and Google email.
Which name to pick
Short, easy to say over the phone, no hyphens or numbers, and ending in .com — customers trust it and carriers treat links on it best (avoid exotic endings like .repair — they can get text messages filtered). Your business name, or business name + city, is the classic choice: smithappliance.com, mirrepaircharlotte.com.
Purchase and setup, screen by screen
- 1
Search for your name
Go to namecheap.com and type your desired name into the big search box.
In the results, add the .com to the cart. If it's taken, try adding your city or trade (smithappliancenc.com) rather than switching to an exotic ending.
- 2
Skip the upsells in the cart
Namecheap will offer hosting, SSL, premium DNS, email, VPN… You need NONE of it: if MeraFix runs your website, hosting and the SSL certificate are already included, and business email is better done with Google Workspace.
Keep only: the domain itself + Domain Privacy (it's free — leave it ON; it hides your home address from public WHOIS).
Check the auto-renew price shown for year 2 — that's what you'll actually pay yearly.
- 3
Create the account and pay
Create your Namecheap account (use your work email), pay ~$10, and turn ON auto-renew for the domain — an expired domain takes your website and email down with it.
Watch your inbox for the registrant-verification email (from Namecheap/ICANN) and click the link inside. Skipping it gets the domain suspended after ~15 days.
- 4
Find where DNS lives
In your Namecheap account: Domain List → Manage (next to your domain) → Advanced DNS tab.
The “Host Records” table is where your records go. Each record is: Type (A / CNAME / TXT…), Host (@ = the bare domain, www = the www version), Value, and TTL (leave “Automatic”).
Namecheap pre-fills a couple of “parking” records on new domains — you'll replace them in the next step.
- 5
Connect the domain to your website
Delete the default parking records on @ and www (URL Redirect / CNAME to parkingpage) so they don't conflict.
For a MeraFix website, add these two records (we confirm the exact values with you when connecting your domain):
A Record · Host: @ · Value: 155.138.193.161 · TTL: Automatic
CNAME Record · Host: www · Value: ingress.merafix.com · TTL: Automatic
Then tell us the domain is pointed — we switch it on, and the SSL certificate (the padlock) issues automatically on first visit.
- 6
Add the Google email records
TXT verification: Host Records → Add New Record → TXT Record · Host: @ · Value: the “google-site-verification=…” string Google gives you.
MX record — note, it lives in a separate place: on the same Advanced DNS tab scroll to “Mail Settings”, switch it to “Custom MX”, and add: smtp.google.com with Priority 1.
Full email walkthrough (what Google asks and when): see our Google Workspace guide.
💡 Never create a CNAME record on the bare domain (@) — Namecheap's own docs warn it breaks email. Your @ host should have the A record + TXT records only.
- 7
Wait and verify
Namecheap says new records normally take ~30 minutes to apply (worldwide propagation can occasionally take a few hours).
Check: your domain opens the website (with the padlock), and Google's verify/activate buttons in the Workspace setup turn green.
If something goes wrong
The site doesn't open on my domain
Almost always a leftover conflicting record: on Advanced DNS remove any URL Redirect or parking CNAME still sitting on @ or www — the A (@), CNAME (www), and any TXT records are the ones that should stay. Then give it 30 minutes.
Email verification or mail delivery fails
Two classic causes: a CNAME record on the bare domain (delete it — @ must not have a CNAME), or the MX added as a regular host record instead of under Mail Settings → Custom MX.
My changes don't seem to apply
DNS is cached: wait the ~30 minutes, then test in an incognito window. dnschecker.org shows how your records look from around the world.
The domain suddenly stopped working entirely
Check whether you clicked the registrant-verification (ICANN) email from step 3 — unverified domains get suspended. Open the link from that email or resend it from the Namecheap dashboard.
This guide is general information. Namecheap's screens and prices are Namecheap's and may change. Verified: July 2026.
Domain ready? Everything builds on it
Website, business email, text-message links — MeraFix sets up the whole customer-facing side on your new domain: a booking website with 150+ local SEO pages, a 24/7 AI receptionist, automated texting, estimates and invoices. You point the DNS; we do the rest in one call.