Verification issue with shared suffix domains

Hi Vercel team,

I’m one of the maintainers of is-an.ai, a free subdomain service for AI developers. I’m reaching out regarding a domain verification issue that’s affecting our users when they try to deploy to Vercel.

Current Issue:

When our users try to add a custom domain like my-project.is-an.ai to their Vercel project, the verification process requires adding a TXT record at _vercel.is-an.ai. However, since is-an.ai is a shared domain service where individual users only control their specific subdomain (e.g., my-project.is-an.ai), they cannot add records to the parent domain is-an.ai.

Expected Behavior:

For shared suffix domains, Vercel should request verification at the subdomain level. Instead of requiring _vercel.is-an.ai, it should ask for _vercel.my-project.is-an.ai, which the subdomain owner can actually control.

Impact:

This issue prevents hundreds of AI developers using is-an.ai subdomains from deploying to Vercel, limiting their hosting options and affecting the broader developer ecosystem. (We have 1600+ registered subdomains and keep getting feedbacks regarding Vercel support) We’ve had to advise our users to use alternative platforms.

Thank you for considering this improvement!

The free domain needs to be included on the Public Suffix List to be recognized as a public suffix instead of a root domain

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