From Deploy to Google Indexing: The Last Mile of Building a Website

Part 8 of “A Civil Engineer’s Website Building Diary.” Content ready. Site built. Now: make it live on the internet.

Choosing a Domain

Candidate	Status	Analysis
moneywisetips.com	Taken	Ideal but unavailable
savesmarttips.com	Available	Weak brand recall
moneytipshub.com	Available	✅ Winner

Why moneytipshub.com:

“money tips” directly matches the target keyword family
“hub” implies a resource center
Easy to spell and remember
Room for brand expansion

Registered on Cloudflare: $10.46/year. At-cost pricing with no markup. Includes automatic WHOIS privacy protection.

Deploying to Cloudflare Pages

Why Cloudflare

Feature	Details
Cost	Free (100K requests/month)
CDN	300+ global edge nodes
SSL	Automatic certificate issuance
Deploy	Git-integrated, push to deploy
Bandwidth	Unlimited

For a new site: free, fast, simple. The trifecta.

Deployment Pitfalls

Pitfall 1: UI Changed Cloudflare redesigned their dashboard in late 2025. Cursor’s instructions referenced the old layout. Couldn’t find the Workers & Pages entry point.

Fix: Screenshotted the new UI and shared with Cursor for re-navigation.

Pitfall 2: Root Directory Error

Failed: root directory not found

My project structure had the site in a subdirectory (money-site/), but Cloudflare defaulted to the repo root.

Fix: Specified the correct build directory.

Pitfall 3: Missing wrangler.jsonc Cloudflare Workers deployment needed a configuration file:

{
  "name": "moneytipshub",
  "compatibility_date": "2026-02-06",
  "assets": {
    "directory": "./dist"
  }
}

After fixing all three issues: deployment successful. 🎉

Cloudflare assigned a temporary domain (moneytipshub.pages.dev), and the site was immediately accessible globally.

Custom Domain Binding

Since both the domain and hosting are on Cloudflare, binding was fully automatic:

Add custom domain in Cloudflare Pages project settings
DNS records: automatic
SSL certificate: automatic
HTTPS redirect: automatic

Total time: ~10 minutes. No manual DNS configuration needed.

This is the biggest advantage of same-provider domain + hosting: zero DNS headaches.

Google Search Console

Step 1: Verify Ownership

Added the site as a property in Google Search Console. Used DNS verification: added a TXT record in Cloudflare’s DNS settings, then clicked “Verify” in Search Console.

Verified in minutes.

Step 2: Submit Sitemap

Astro auto-generates a sitemap at /sitemap-index.xml during build.

Submitted to Search Console:

https://www.moneytipshub.com/sitemap-index.xml

Status: Success.

Google now knows about all 110 pages on the site.

Step 3: An Unexpected Discovery

Search Console showed historical data from 2022 — the domain was previously registered and used by someone else.

After investigation: no spam or penalty history. The domain’s age might even provide a slight SEO advantage.

Deployment Is a Patience Exercise

Every step is straightforward in isolation. But every step can get stuck:

Domain selection: 30 minutes of deliberation
Finding the deploy button: UI changed
Configuration errors: trial and error
DNS propagation: anxious waiting

The pattern: encounter error → copy error message → paste to Cursor → get fix → proceed.

My advice:

Don’t fear deployment. It’s simpler than building.
Expect pitfalls. First-try success almost never happens.
Document every error. These become your most valuable lessons.
Use the same provider for domain + hosting. Eliminates DNS complexity.

Cost Summary

Item	Cost	Period
Domain (moneytipshub.com)	$10.46	/year
Cloudflare Pages hosting	$0	Free tier
SSL certificate	$0	Auto-issued
CDN (300+ nodes)	$0	Included
Google Search Console	$0	Free
Infrastructure total	$10.46/year
Cursor subscription	$20/month	Development tool
Operating total	~$22/month	~$0.70/day

Less than a daily coffee for a globally distributed website indexed by Google.

Next: Reflections on AI from a civil engineer’s perspective — it’s not a career change, it’s a dimension upgrade.

Site: https://www.moneytipshub.com/