JavaScript CORS/Express: Getting data from server from domain html

[GREFF1978]

Howdy!

This has been many days of trying to research however, either I am misunderstanding something or the solution online is not directred toward my issue.

I am running a node server on a sub-domain as such: xxx.yyy.com

I have express, socket.io and cors all installed.

My app.js file:

const http = require('http');
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const cors = require('cors');
const server = require('http').createServer(app);

const path = require('path');

const io = require("socket.io")(server);

app.use(cors());

app.use('/', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

io.on("connection", (socket) => {
    
});

server.listen();

In my public folder I have a file 'testCors.html' which just outputs, Hello World.

Outside of the server, I have a file located here: www.yyy.com/testCors.php

<script src="_js/jquery-3.6.0.min.js"></script>

<script>
$( document ).ready(function() {

            $.ajax({
                type: "GET",
                url: 'https://xxx.yyy.com/testCors.html',
                dataType: "html",
                success: function(result) {
                    alert(result);
                }
            });

        });
</script>

As you can see, I just want the yyy.com/testCors.php page to alert 'Hello World' as found from xxx.yyy.com/textCors.html

However, I continue to get the CORS error.

Any related issues I can find online on stackoverflow, YT and here and other forums seems to talk about one port on localhost to another port, or receiving API from external domain, however I want my php page on public_html to receive.

I have also tried setting headers with PHP on client side but not having any luck with that either.

Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!