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@mikestone14
Created April 23, 2014 00:08
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Getting a GoDaddy domain to point to a Heroku app.

Pointing a GoDaddy domain to a Heroku app

https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/custom-domains http://thenomadicfreelancer.blogspot.com/2012/08/pointing-godaddy-domain-to-your-heroku.html

1) Custom Subdomains

For each custom subdomain use domains:add in the Terminal.

heroku domains:add www.example.com

2) Subdomain DNS

Go to the domain's DNS manager and configure it with a CNAME record pointing the subdomain to your herokuapp.com hostname.

Record Name Target
CNAME www example.herokuapp.com

To check that this worked correctly run host www.example.com

3) URL Forwarding

This will work to have www.example.com forward to www.example.herokuapp.com, but it won't work if a user types example.com into the browser.

To get this to work, go to the GoDaddy domain information and set forwarding to www.example.com.

Done!
@bialikover
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I needed to redirect the @ domain to:
50.63.202.1
according to this article:
http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/5289/updating-your-domain-names-ip-address-for-forwarding?locale=en

@initFabian
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If youre ever in Houston, I'll buy you a beer.

Thanks!

@davidmccoy
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@bialikover thank you!

@btoone
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btoone commented Jul 2, 2016

@mikestone14, when I do this it ends up with the Heroku app url in the address bar (aka a 301 redirect) instead of my custom url? I setup the CNAME and I pointed A record to 50.63.202.1 as per @bialikover link. Any idea how to keep my custom url in the address bar (I swear this use to be easier)?

@btoone
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btoone commented Jul 6, 2016

Update: The redirect was happening because I didn't realize Rack::CanonicalHost was in place in my app (a default of Suspenders). The APPLICATION_HOST env variable was set to the Heroku app URL instead of the custom URL. Once I updated the env variable everything worked as expected.

@secondstar
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@caspyin, good point about APPLICATION_HOST env. Thanks!

@dhg
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dhg commented Jan 16, 2017

This saved me a bunch of time futzing with GoDaddy. Thx man!

@andresgarciag
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Thanks Man this info same me a lot of time on godaddy , awsome info 👍

@mgrigajtis
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This does not work.

@LisaBee224
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@caspyin I'm having the same problem you did--but I can't find where APPLICATION_HOST is in my Rails app! Did you just go to config/environments/production?

@jvr0x
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jvr0x commented Mar 27, 2017

As other said, saved a lot of time. Thanks!

@labanino
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labanino commented Apr 3, 2017

I added the domain in Heroku like this, www.mysite.com instead of mysite.com but if I typed in the browser mysite.com I got the Godaddy parked page but the domain forwarding did the trick for the last. Thanks a lot!

@dkumarlinux
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I tried to do so many time to add cutom domain with heroku by command
heroku domains:add www.mysite.in
Adding www.mysite.in to ⬢ guarded-atoll-####... !
▸ Please verify your account in order to add domains (please enter a credit card) For more information, see
https://devcenter.heroku.com/categories/billing Verify now at https://heroku.com/verify

Even www.mysite.in shows heroku purple page
but not working anymore..

@artemv
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artemv commented Oct 11, 2017

Just tried it, all went fine except the forwarding that just didn't work at all for my domain. After setting up the forwarding www.mysite.in worked but mysite.in connection timed out. Setting IP manually as per bialikover's link didn't change this.

Resolved only by setting up Cloudflare (free) account and switching GoDaddy domain settings to its nameservers - then all worked like a charm.

@BFMarks
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BFMarks commented May 22, 2018

I will never use Go Daddy again - terrible

@YahiaBadr
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YahiaBadr commented Oct 14, 2019

this sounds great! i noticed that my domain on godday is not secured ( not https) however my deployment link on heroku is secured ( uses https) how could i make my domain uses this certificate without buying or renting a certificate that worth a lot of money?! I am using Node and Express as server side, and React as client side. Please if you know something that could help me to make my domain certified and secure i will be thankful!

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