Lesson 5 of 5

Connect your domain

Point your Namecheap domain at Vercel and get SSL — all in under 10 minutes.

~10 min to complete

You have a live app at something.vercel.app and a domain you own on Namecheap. This lesson connects them.

The approach is nameservers: you tell Namecheap to let Vercel manage DNS for your domain. Vercel then handles everything — routing, SSL (the padlock), and subdomains — automatically. It's the simplest option and the one Vercel recommends.

Only do this with a fresh domain. If your domain has email forwarding, other websites, or existing DNS records you care about, the nameserver change will wipe them. For a brand-new domain (which is what this course assumes) there's nothing to lose.

1. Add your domain in Vercel

In the Vercel dashboard, open your project and click Settings → Domains.

Type your domain (e.g. yournotes.com) into the input and click Add. When asked whether you want to add the www version too, add both — Vercel will redirect www.yournotes.com to yournotes.com automatically.

Screenshot placeholder

The Vercel project Settings → Domains panel with a domain typed in the input field and an Add button. Below it, a list of two domains — the apex domain and the www subdomain — both showing a warning that DNS is not configured yet.

Add both the apex domain (yournotes.com) and the www version. Both will show warnings until you update nameservers in the next step.

2. Copy Vercel's nameservers

After adding the domain, Vercel shows a panel that says "To use this domain, add the following nameservers to your domain registrar."

You'll see two nameserver addresses — they look like:

ns1.vercel-dns.com
ns2.vercel-dns.com

Copy these exactly. You'll paste them into Namecheap in the next step.

Screenshot placeholder

The Vercel domain panel showing a 'Nameservers' section with two nameserver addresses (ns1.vercel-dns.com and ns2.vercel-dns.com) and a copy button next to each.

Copy both nameserver addresses from Vercel.

3. Update nameservers in Namecheap

In a new browser tab, go to your Namecheap dashboard → click Manage next to your domain → open the Domain tab.

Find the Nameservers section. Change the dropdown from Namecheap BasicDNS to Custom DNS.

Paste Vercel's two nameserver addresses into the fields that appear. Click the green tick to save.

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The Namecheap Domain management page showing the Nameservers section with the dropdown set to 'Custom DNS' and two input fields containing Vercel's nameserver addresses.

Set both Vercel nameserver addresses and save.

DNS changes take time to propagate. Namecheap usually applies nameserver changes within 5–30 minutes, but the global DNS network can take up to 48 hours to fully update. In practice, your domain usually works within 15 minutes.

4. Wait, then verify

Go back to Vercel → Settings → Domains. Within 5–30 minutes, the warning icons on your domains will be replaced by green checkmarks, and Vercel will have automatically provisioned an SSL certificate (the padlock in your browser).

Open your domain in a new browser tab. Your app should load over https://.

You'll know it worked when:

Vercel shows green checkmarks next to both domains
Visiting https://yournotes.com loads your app
Your browser shows a padlock in the address bar

If it's not working after 30 minutes

Find the one that matches what you're seeing and paste it into your AI CLI or into claude.ai / chatgpt.com:

Domain still showing red warning in Vercel

Fix: domain not connecting to Vercel

I am a non-technical user. I am trying to connect a domain I bought on Namecheap to a project on Vercel. I added the domain in Vercel's Settings → Domains panel and updated the nameservers in Namecheap to Vercel's nameservers, but the domain still shows a warning in Vercel after 30+ minutes.

Please help me diagnose what's wrong. Walk me through checking:

Whether the nameservers actually updated at Namecheap (how to confirm they saved)
Whether the correct nameservers are showing in Vercel's domain panel
How to check DNS propagation using a public tool

Explain every step in plain English.

Browser shows "Not secure" or SSL error

Fix: SSL not provisioning

I am a non-technical user. My domain is showing green checkmarks in Vercel's domain panel, but when I visit it in my browser I get an SSL error or a "Not secure" warning instead of a padlock. Please explain what's happening and how to fix it. Keep explanations in plain English.

You're done

Your app is live at a URL you own. Every time you ask your AI CLI to make a change and it commits and pushes, Vercel redeploys automatically — your live site updates within seconds, no manual steps required.

Tell us what you shipped: hello@plainbuilt.co