Why use Neocities for your site?

I really like the control of physical code on my site. And honestly, whenever I've tried out one of the many site builders I just find them too restrictive. I like being able to dive deep into the code and learn that way, instead of being boxed in by a builder and all the plugins they want you to install just to make it work normally.

I'm also pretty nostalgic for the old internet too, so I hope that comes through a bit in how I've built things. And hey, apparently it also scores green in Core Web Vitals. Because that stuff matters :)

Setting up a custom domain on Neocities

Neocities does allow you to use a custom domain, but you will need to upgrade to a Supporter account which costs $5 a month (around £3.70). Along with custom domains, the Supporter plan also gives you extended site stats, the ability to create multiple sites on one account (though if you want custom domains across multiple sites, you'll need to buy a domain for each one), and no file upload type restrictions, so you can upload scripts like PHP, Python, and Ruby.

There are mixed opinions out there on whether Supporter is worth it compared to other web hosting options. Personally though, I love that I can make my website look exactly how I want with any code I like. I'm not limited to templates and plugins to do what I want, which both usually cost money anyway.

For the domain itself, I'd recommend Porkbun - they're fun, straightforward, and really competitive prices. You can also just have a domain for a year if you like, this isn't really an option on other domain privders who try and lock you in to three years for the best deals. My domain costs around £10 a year, and they also offer add-ons like email hosting if you fancy a branded email address. All in, the total cost of running this site with Neocities Supporter and a custom domain works out to around £60 a year.

I'll be honest, as an SEO, having the site on .neocities.org was starting to affect me. I also couldn't see the full picture in Google Search Console, because I couldn't access the whole domain's data. That said, it took me about two years to get the site to a place where I felt happy for other people to see it, so there's no rush. Just make your site, sit on it, tweak it, and when you feel ready to share it with the world, then look at spending money on it.

Once you have your domain and Supporter, head to neocities.org/settings → Manage Site Settings → Custom Domain. You usually can't see the instructions for the Custom Domain unless you subscribe so here's the full set of instructions Neocities gives you once you're set up:

neocities.org — Custom Domain Setup

Adding a custom domain allows you to have a domain name attached to your web site. So if you had a domain like yourdomain.com, you could have it point to your Neocities site. If you don't have the domain yet, you will have to purchase a domain name from a registrar like Namecheap first.

We will be using yourdomain.com for the examples below, but you should replace it with your own domain name.

1
Add an A record First, you need to add an "A record" to point your root domain (sometimes shown with an @ symbol) (yourdomain.com) to the following IP address (see an example here).
2
Add an AAAA record optional but recommended Next, you can add an "AAAA record" that also points to your root domain. This isn't strictly required, but provides IPv6 support which helps future proof your site. Use this address for the AAAA record (see an example here).
3
Add a CNAME for www optional but recommended Sometimes users will type in www before a domain despite it no longer being necessary to load web sites. If you would like to have a www for your domain, create a CNAME record pointing www to yourdomain.com (see an example here). Note that any requests to www.yourdomain.com will automatically be redirected to yourdomain.com.
4
Remove any URL redirects Remove any "URL redirects" if they are present — they are not needed and cause issues with connecting the domain. For example, Namecheap has a URL Redirect Record on new domains that needs to be deleted.
5
Wait for DNS to propagate Wait about 5 minutes for the nameserver changes to update. Sometimes it can take a short while for your domain provider to update their records.
6
Add your domain to Neocities Finally, add your domain name to the box below (just yourdomain.com — don't add any subdomains), and your domain should come online within 5 minutes! We will automatically create SSL certs for your domain.

Every domain hosting panel looks a little different, but ultimately you just need to enter one IP address into the settings of your new custom domain. The full set of instructions above is ideal, but the A record in Step 1 is the essential one.

How do I set up my own Neocities?

If you're interested in running a blog, there are loads of Javascript-based tools that can help like Zonelets, which is what this blog is running on.

Zonelets itself is based on other small tools like Zoner, Bimbo, and Strawberry Starter. I just needed a place to host my musings and keep an archive of various YouTube videos I'm in. But if you know some HTML/CSS (or use a tool for 'vibe coding'), you can do literally anything!