The domain troubleshooting guide can help with most custom domain configuration issues. You might be able to use that guide to solve it before a human is available to help you. Then you can come back here and share the answer for bonus points.

https://vercel.com/docs/projects/domains/troubleshooting

You can also use v0 to narrow down the possibilities.

you'll need to update your DNS records at your domain registrar (where you bought your domain, like GoDaddy or Namecheap). Vercel will give you two records to add: an A Record and a CNAME Record.

For example, the A Record could look like this: @ points to 76.76.21.21 (but it might be different for you). And the CNAME Record could be something like: www points to cname.vercel-dns.com.

Once you’ve added those, just wait for the DNS to update. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours, so don’t worry if it’s not instant.

Alternatively, if you want an easier option, you can change your Nameservers to Vercel’s. Just set them to:

• ns1.vercel-dns.com

• ns2.vercel-dns.com

That way, Vercel will automatically set up everything for you.

Finally, go back to Vercel and check if the domain is linked properly once the DNS has propagated.

Hi! Thanks for the response. I decided to try reimport my Github repo to start from the beginning again. A few things I noticed and thought I should add:

1. I didn’t buy a domain. I was under the impression this is completely free.
2. It says the domain was registered with a Third Party so I can’t make any changes regarding Nameservers. I didn’t register this with a Third Party.
3. You said it could take up to a couple of hours for the changes to take place, so for now I will just come back in a few hours and I will let you know if it still says the same.

okay Once you are available, let me know. I will help you.

So from what I’m gathering, giving your website a custom name is actually NOT a free feature? I have to include .vercel.app at the end otherwise it will show as invalid?

Good question! Congrats on getting to the stage of building your portfolio.

Vercel provide deployments with a .vercel.app domain. So you can have itzonlyvalerie.vercel.app as your domain that you can share, and that is free.

itzonlyvalerie.com is a custom domain, and custom domains are typically purchased. It's showing invalid because you don't own that domain and haven't configured it, so this is expected. Once you buy and own a domain, you can amend the DNS settings to match the recommended configuration for it, which essentially allows your domain provider (aka a domain registrar) to align with your hosting provider.

You can purchase domains through various providers, but Vercel has it's own domain marketplace which makes buying and adding custom domains into your projects super easy.

As of now, the custom domain you want is available (and looks like it's actually on sale right now). If you do go through that route, I'd remove the itzonlyvalerie.com config, purchase through the marketplace, then you can add the new domain to your project.

Once this is purchased, you can then add the custom domain to your project. With or without the custom domain, you can still use the .vercel.app domain.

Here's some more information on custom domains.

Hope that helps, and happy building!

Solution summary

To resolve this, users must either purchase the domain and update its DNS settings with the A and CNAME records provided in the Vercel dashboard or use the free '.vercel.app' subdomain.

If using a custom domain, the A record should point to the Vercel IP address and the CNAME record to 'cname.vercel-dns.com' at the domain registrar.

I see! Thank you so much. I got into this very recently and I guess I was told wrong information about having custom domains…