Build Your Own Website & Custom Email for Free: A Google Sites & Cloudflare Guide 🚀

Having a personal online presence is more accessible than ever before, and for those seeking simplicity and ease of use, Google Sites emerges as a top choice. While I am a great enthusiast of WordPress for its flexibility and extensive features, it requires continuous attention and maintenance.
On the other hand, most managed services come with a subscription fee. Therefore, if your goal is to establish a straightforward, swift, and hassle-free online presence, Google Sites stands out. Coupled with Cloudflare, which offers free services to manage your domain and security, you can create a website and a professional email address without any associated costs. This makes it an excellent solution for those who prefer a zero-maintenance and free solution.

Step 1: Purchase a Domain
The first step is to purchase a domain from a registrar. You can choose from a variety of service providers such as Namecheap, or if you require a country-specific domain (e.g., .hu or .ca), you would go to a local registrar in your country.

Step 2: Adding Your Domain to Cloudflare
After securing your domain name, the next step is to create a free account with Cloudflare. Once you’ve registered, you can add your domain to your Cloudflare account. This process involves updating the nameserver (NS) records at your domain registrar’s platform with the NS records provided by Cloudflare. By doing this, you transfer the management of your domain’s DNS settings to Cloudflare. Your domain will then appear as active on your Cloudflare dashboard, indicating that it’s ready for the next steps in configuration.

Step 3: Clean Up DNS Records
Navigate to the DNS section in your Cloudflare account and remove all existing records (using the Edit -> Delete function). This is done to prevent any conflicts with previous configurations, as you will be adding fresh records that correspond to your new setup.

Step 4: Setting Up Your Custom Email
To have a personalized email address such as hello@yourdomain.com, go to the Email -> Destination addresses section in Cloudflare and input an existing email address you wish to use, like your Gmail address. After this, establish a ‘Catch-All’ routing rule on the Routing rules page which will redirect all emails sent to @yourdomain.com to the email address you have verified. This step will also automatically create the necessary MX records for email routing.

Be mindful that with this setup, you will receive all emails sent to your address, but if you wish to reply from your custom address, additional SMTP settings are required, such as those provided by services like Sendgrid or Brevo. These services also offer free options.

Step 5: Create a Google Sites Webpage
With your domain ready, proceed to create your webpage using Google Sites. This platform is user-friendly and requires no previous web development experience.

Step 6: Publish your website
Go to the icon with a little person and a plus sign and select “General access” -> “Published site” -> Public.

Step 7: Publishing with Custom Domain on Google Sites
In Google Sites, go to the publish settings and select the option to use a custom domain. Here, you will need to create a TXT record for domain verification purposes and then a CNAME record (the Proxy Status should be set to DNS-only) to direct your domain to Google’s servers, following the instructions provided by Google Sites. These steps will integrate your domain with your Google Sites webpage, making it accessible to the public under your own domain name.

Step 8: Redirect to ‘www’ Using Cloudflare Page Rules
Since Google Sites primarily operates with the ‘www’ prefix, it’s essential to ensure that your site is reachable whether visitors type ‘www’ before your domain or not. To achieve this, you’ll need to configure Page Rules in Cloudflare to redirect all traffic consistently to the ‘www’ version of your domain.

Before setting up the Page Rules, you must first create an A record (the Proxy Status should be set to Proxied) in Cloudflare for your domain without the ‘www’. This A record will point to an IP address, which can be any IP, such as 8.8.8.8, which is commonly used for this purpose. Once the A record is in place, you can proceed to define your Page Rules as follows:

The Page Rules for redirecting to ‘www’ should be configured as follows:

1. *yourdomain.yourdomainending/* Forwarding URL (Status Code: 301 - Permanent Redirect, Url: https://www.yourdomain.yourdomainending) Enabled
2. https://yourdomain.yourdomainending/* Forwarding URL (Status Code: 301 - Permanent Redirect, Url: http://www.yourdomain.yourdomainending) Enabled
3. http://yourdomain.yourdomainending/* Forwarding URL (Status Code: 301 - Permanent Redirect, Url: https://www.yourdomain.yourdomainending) Enabled

By following these steps, you can set up a website and email domain that enhances your digital identity, all at no cost. Remember to allow some time for DNS changes to propagate across the internet. Once complete, your website and custom email will be up and running.

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