Domain configuration is an important step in launching a web application. Below is a guide on the simplest way to configure custom domains in Windows Azure from an external domain provider. In this example, we will use GoDaddy.com as our domain provider and host. The application will be hosted in Windows Azure. This guide will assume you have purchased a domain and have an existing application on Azure, under a standard windows azure domain (for example: site-com.azurewebsites.net).

1. Open Windows Azure by navigating to the following link portal.azure.com. Follow any steps required to access your Windows Azure resources.
2. Select all resources to bring up a view of all of the different resources that you are managing.
3. Select the Windows Web App that you would like to which you would like to point a domain name. This will bring up the App Service blade.
4. The App Service blade will have a panel on the left, with several sections. Under the section titled 'SETTINGS', select 'Custom domains'.
5. Selecting 'Custom domains' will open the Custom domains settings for your web app. This panel displays important information that you will need to configure on the domain host. Take note of the IP Address of your app as well as the URL of your app.
6. Navigate to your domain's DNS configuration settings.
7. Add the following records to your DNS configuration settings

   Record Type	Name	Value	TTL
   A	@	IP Address of your app	Leave as is
   TXT	@	URL of app (example: site-com.azurewebsites.net)	Leave as is
   A	*	IP Address of your app	Leave as is
   TXT	*	URL of app (example: site-com.azurewebsites.net)	Leave as is
   A	www	IP Address of your app	Leave as is
   TXT	www	URL of app (example: site-com.azurewebsites.net)	Leave as is

8. After you have configured the appropriate DNS records for your app, open up the blade for your Web App in Windows Azure.
9. The App Service blade will have a panel on the left, with several sections. Under the section titled 'SETTINGS', select 'Custom domains'.
10. Select 'Custom domains' to open the Custom domains settings for your web app.
11. Select 'Add hostname' to open the hostname management blade.
12. Enter the domain that you will want to point to your Web App (for example: site-name.com), and press 'Validate'.
13. If all is well, a message will be displayed indicating that the hostname has been validated and the hostname has been assigned to your Web App successfully. Close the hostname management blade to go back to the Custom domains settings panel.
14. Now that the domain pointing for your hostname is configured, we will want to configure the same for the subdomain 'www'. Select 'Add hostname' again to open the hostname management blade.
15. Enter the domain that you will want to point to your Web App, prepended with 'www' (for example: www.site-name.com), and press 'Validate'.
16. If all is well, a message will be displayed indicating that the hostname has been validated and the hostname has been assigned to your Web App successfully. Close the hostname management blade to go back to the Custom domains settings panel.
17. Browse your domain and subdomain to test the working condition of each. Keep in mind that the time required to propagate the changes that have been made to the DNS records for your domain will vary. If you are not seeing your Azure Web App when browsing the domain, it may be as simple as waiting for the DNS record updates to propagate.

At this point you should have a custom domain for your web application! If this article has helped you launch your web app, I would love to hear your story. Questions are welcome.