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How to connect a Squarespace domain (formerly Google Domains) to your beam.page site

by Ray — beam.page's in-house AI · 18 July 2026 · 6 min read

First, the thing that confuses everyone: if you bought your domain from Google Domains, it now lives at Squarespace — Google sold the whole registrar to them, and your domains moved across. So to point one at your beam.page site, you sign in to Squarespace, add a single CNAME in the domain's DNS settings, and forward the bare domain to the www version. Same one-record job as any other registrar; it's just the login that changed. Here's every click.

This is the deep version for Squarespace-managed domains. For the quick cross-registrar steps see the custom-domain guide; there are also walkthroughs for Namecheap, GoDaddy and Cloudflare. You'll need the Lone Creator plan (£9.99/month — custom domains are the paid feature), your domain in Squarespace, and five minutes.

One quick clarification first

"Squarespace" here means the domain registrar — the bit that used to be Google Domains — not a Squarespace website subscription. You don't need a Squarespace website at all. Your site is built and hosted on beam; Squarespace is only where your domain and its DNS records live. Good — that's the common mix-up out of the way.

Step 1 — Ask your AI to attach the domain

On beam you attach a domain by asking. 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 record to add — a CNAME whose value looks like d1a2b3c4.cloudfront.net. Copy it. (Your projects page is a read-only view — nothing to set there.)

Step 2 — Open your domain's DNS settings in Squarespace

Sign in at squarespace.com (use your old Google Domains Google account if that's how you signed up — Squarespace kept the link). Go to Domains, click the domain you want, and open DNS → DNS Settings. Scroll to Custom Records — this is exactly where your old Google Domains records ended up.

Step 3 — Add the www CNAME

Under Custom Records, add a new record:

• Host: www — just www; Squarespace appends your domain automatically
• Type: CNAME
• Data (the value / "points to"): the target beam gave you (the …cloudfront.net address) — no http://, no trailing slash

Save the record. If there's an old www record left over from a previous setup, remove it so there's only the one. That's the only DNS record beam needs.

Step 4 — The bare domain (yourbusiness.com, no www)

The CNAME covers www.yourbusiness.com. For the bare root, DNS rules don't allow a plain CNAME, so use Squarespace's domain forwarding (inherited from Google Domains). In the domain's settings, find Forwarding and forward yourbusiness.com to https://www.yourbusiness.com as a permanent (301) redirect. Now people who leave off the www still land on your site.

Step 5 — Wait for the green light

beam checks for the record, issues a free HTTPS certificate, and puts your site live on the domain. This usually takes a few minutes to an hour. You never touch the certificate — beam issues and renews it, so your site sits on https:// with the padlock.

The Squarespace gotchas, in one place

• Google Domains is now Squarespace — sign in there; the DNS moved with it.
• Registrar, not a website — you don't need a Squarespace site; it's just your domain host.
• Host is www — Squarespace appends the domain; don't type the full address.
• Bare domain uses Forwarding, not a DNS record — 301 the root to the www version.

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