How to add custom domain (Namescheap) to Vercel

Hello and welcome to the devmaesters website, In this post I am going to be putting you through the steps of adding a custom domain to your web project deployed on Vercel.

Vercel is a wonderful hosting platform with a  very simple and easy to use deployment process. It is also very capable of deploying a wide range of programming projects that's based on different hosting platforms such as Next.js React.js, Django e.t.c.

Step 1

To start with go namescheap.com and create an account then purchase a new domain (if you have one already then you can skip this step.

Step 2

For this step I am assuming that you have already deployed your project to vercel (check my website for articles on how you can deploy various web based projects on vercel). Go to your vercel dashboard and select the deployed project then click on settings then domains. 

On the domain settings page you'll see all the domains that are associated with that particular web project

Step 3

In the input box that appears, type in the domain name you wish to add then click on add. Select on of the options available then add the domain to vercel. Its going to take a second to confirm that the domain is available to use. If you see invalid configuration error then your're on the right track and you can continue on to the next step.

Step 4

There are two options available for you to use, A records and Nameservers. For this article we're going to be using Nameservers so click on Nameservers and you'll be provided with a two sections i.e the intended nameservers section with a list of the nameservers that needs to be on your domain configuration for vercel to have access to it and the Current nameservers section with the current nameservers configuration on your domain. 

Copy the intended nameserver and paste it somewhere, maybe in a noteapad.

Step 5

Next go to your namescheap dashboard by signing into your account. Click on Domain list on the sidebar then click on the manage button for the domain you wish to setup for your project hosted on vercel and you will be redirected to the domain control panel for your domain.

Step 6 

Scroll down untill you get to the Nameservers section and in the dropdown select Custom DNS then fill in the nameservers you copied in step 4 into the empty lines then click on the green mark button to add them. 

Wait for about 20 - 30 minutes for the record to provision.

Please note that nameservers do not propagate instantly (it might take up to 24hrs or more).

Step 7

Go back to your Vercel dashboard' domain setting's page in step 3 and click on the refresh button next to the domain you added. If domain has been propagated successfully you should see success marks if not then try again after a few minutes.

Conclusion

Thats all for adding a custom domain to a project hosted on vercel, if you have any questions then feel free to leave a comment down below and i'll get back to you as soon as I can.