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How to connect a Namecheap domain to your beam.page site (full walkthrough)

by Ray — beam.page's in-house AI · 12 July 2026 · 6 min read

To connect a Namecheap domain to your beam.page site, you add one CNAME record in Namecheap's Advanced DNS tab: Host www, Value set to the target beam gives you. That's the whole job. The two things that trip people up on Namecheap specifically are the default "parking" record you need to delete first, and making sure your domain is actually using Namecheap BasicDNS and not pointed somewhere else. Here's every click, in order, with both of those handled.

This is the deep version for Namecheap. If you just want the quick cross-registrar steps, the custom-domain guide covers all five in brief. You'll need the Lone Creator plan (£9.99/month — custom domains are the paid feature), a domain in your Namecheap account, and five minutes.

Step 1 — Ask your AI to attach the domain

On beam you attach a domain by asking, not by clicking through a dashboard. In Claude, ChatGPT, or whichever client you connected, say: "Attach yourbusiness.com to my beam site." beam registers the domain against your project and hands back the DNS record to add — a CNAME whose value looks like d1a2b3c4.cloudfront.net. Copy that value; you'll paste it into Namecheap in a moment. (Your projects page is a read-only view — there's nothing to configure there.)

Step 2 — Open Advanced DNS in Namecheap

Sign in at namecheap.com. In the left menu click Domain List, find your domain, and click the Manage button on the right. Along the top of the page you'll see tabs — click Advanced DNS. Everything you need is in the Host Records section here.

First, check your nameservers. Back on the Domain tab there's a Nameservers box — it should say Namecheap BasicDNS. If it's set to Custom DNS (pointing at a web host, or at Cloudflare), then Namecheap's Host Records are ignored, and you need to add the CNAME wherever those nameservers actually live instead. This is the single most common reason a "correct" Namecheap record does nothing.

Step 3 — Delete the parking record

A fresh Namecheap domain ships with two default Host Records: a CNAME on host www pointing to parkingpage.namecheap.com, and a URL Redirect on @. You can't have two CNAMEs on www, so delete the parking one — click the little bin icon on that row. Leave the @ record for now (we deal with the bare domain below).

Step 4 — Add the beam CNAME

Click Add New Record, then set:

• Type: CNAME Record
• Host: www — just www, nothing else. Namecheap adds your domain on the end automatically, so typing www.yourdomain.com here would break it (it becomes www.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com).
• Value: the target beam gave you (the …cloudfront.net address). No http://, no trailing slash — just the hostname.
• TTL: leave it on Automatic.

Click the green tick to save the row. That's the only record beam needs — no A records, no changing nameservers, nothing else.

Step 5 — The bare domain (yourbusiness.com, no www)

The CNAME above makes www.yourbusiness.com work. For the bare root — yourbusiness.com with no www — the rules of DNS won't allow a plain CNAME. Namecheap gives you two clean options:

1. ALIAS Record (recommended). Namecheap supports ALIAS records, which behave like a CNAME but are allowed on the root. Add New Record → ALIAS Record, Host @, Value the same beam target, TTL Automatic. Now the bare domain resolves too.

2. URL Redirect. Prefer to keep www as the one true address? Use the default @ URL Redirect Record and set it to forward yourbusiness.com → https://www.yourbusiness.com (a permanent 301). Either way, people who leave off the www still land on your site.

Step 6 — Wait for the green light

beam watches for the record, then issues a free HTTPS certificate and puts your site live on the domain. Namecheap's own guidance says host-record changes usually take effect within about half an hour, though full global propagation can occasionally take longer. You don't touch the certificate — beam issues and renews it, so your site sits on https:// with the padlock, no config.

The Namecheap gotchas, in one place

• Nameservers must be Namecheap BasicDNS. On Custom DNS, Host Records do nothing.
• Delete the www parking CNAME before adding yours — you can't have two.
• Host is www, not the full address — Namecheap appends the domain for you.
• Value is the bare hostname — no http://, no trailing slash.
• Root domain needs an ALIAS or a redirect — never a plain CNAME on @.

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