Where will your website live
Hosting is the server where your website lives. For a static website (HTML, CSS, JS – exactly what you’ve been building), the best place to start is GitHub Pages: it’s free, reliable, and you already know Git.
Show me: deploying to GitHub Pages
- Push your project to GitHub (you already know how:
git add .,git commit,git push). - On GitHub, open your repository → Settings → Pages.
- Under “Source”, pick the
mainbranch and the/ (root)folder. - Save it – within a minute, your website is running at
your-name.github.io/repo-name.
Done. Your website is on the internet, and the whole world can see it. 🎉
Connecting your own domain
Got a domain from the last lesson? Let’s connect it:
- On GitHub: Settings → Pages → Custom domain → enter your domain.
- At your registrar, set up the DNS records (you’ll find them in the GitHub Pages docs):
- a CNAME record for
www→your-name.github.io - A records for the domain without www → GitHub Pages IP addresses
- a CNAME record for
- Wait – DNS changes can take up to a few hours to spread across the world (usually just minutes).
Have a website with its own server (a guestbook or a chatbot)? GitHub Pages only handles static pages – a server needs different hosting (e.g. Railway, Render; they have free starter tiers). The process is similar: you connect your repository and the service starts the server. You can still keep the static part of your website on Pages.
Now it’s your turn 💪
- Deploy your project to GitHub Pages following the steps above.
- Open your website on your phone (not on Wi-Fi!) – can you see it? That’s how the whole world sees it.
- Send the address to one person (a parent, a friend) and ask for feedback: what works, what feels off.
- If you have a domain, connect it and check that your website runs on your own address.
- Write down in
LAUNCH.md: your website’s address and the date of your first deployment. That’s a historic moment!
Check: Your website is reachable from any device in the world – on your GitHub Pages address, ideally on your own domain. Someone other than you has seen it.
What to take away from this lesson
- GitHub Pages = free hosting for static websites, deployed in just a few clicks.
- A custom domain connects through DNS records (CNAME and A).
- A website with its own server needs different hosting – the static part can stay on Pages.
© 2026 Ing. Martin Polak / AlgoRhino · Content usage terms