Setting Up a Custom Domain on Vercel

Connecting a domain to Vercel is easy in principle, but many teams lose time on DNS edge cases (especially around apex vs www and registrar defaults). This guide gives you a repeatable flow using both the Vercel dashboard and CLI, plus the common gotchas that break SSL or routing.

1) Add the domain to your Vercel project

From your project root, link the repo and add your domain:

vercel link
vercel domains add example.com
vercel domains add www.example.com

Adding both root (example.com) and subdomain (www.example.com) upfront makes redirect setup cleaner and avoids duplicate SEO surfaces later.

2) Choose DNS strategy: nameservers vs records

You have two valid approaches:

• Use Vercel nameservers (ns1.vercel-dns.com, ns2.vercel-dns.com)
• Keep your current DNS provider and add records manually

If you keep external DNS, configure:

This split is important:

• Apex/root domains cannot always use CNAME at every registrar
• www should use CNAME for clean target management

3) Set canonical domain and redirect behavior

In Vercel project domain settings, choose one canonical URL. Most teams either:

• Keep www as canonical and redirect apex to www
• Keep apex canonical and redirect www to apex

Pick one and keep it consistent with your metadata/canonical tags. If both resolve without redirect, Google may index duplicates and dilute ranking.

For app-level redirect enforcement in Next.js:

// next.config.js
module.exports = {
  async redirects() {
    return [
      {
        source: "/:path*",
        has: [{ type: "host", value: "example.com" }],
        destination: "https://www.example.com/:path*",
        permanent: true,
      },
    ];
  },
};

Use either platform redirects or app redirects, but do not configure conflicting rules in both places.

4) Verify SSL and propagation

Vercel issues certificates automatically once DNS resolves. During propagation:

• dig example.com A +short
• dig www.example.com CNAME +short
• vercel domains inspect example.com

If SSL is pending for more than a few minutes, confirm there are no stale records at the registrar and no proxy/CDN mode interfering with validation.

5) CLI-first production workflow

A reliable sequence for teams:

vercel domains add example.com
vercel domains add www.example.com
vercel domains ls
vercel domains inspect example.com

Then deploy and test both hosts:

• https://example.com
• https://www.example.com

You should see one redirect to the canonical host and all paths preserved.

6) Common gotchas

• Wrong project assignment: domain attached to a different Vercel project
• Apex CNAME confusion: registrar does not support ALIAS/ANAME flattening
• Mixed redirects: DNS forward + Vercel redirect + app redirect causing loops
• Missing preview awareness: hardcoded production URL in env vars breaking previews
• Old records lingering: duplicate A or AAAA records from previous providers

For production, keep NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL aligned with your canonical domain and verify social metadata/canonical links use the same host. That alignment is what turns a technically working domain into a search-friendly one.