Tangled wires symbolizing DNS confusion — franzdomingo.tech

How I Set Up My Domain DNS and Email (Without Losing My Mind)

I thought buying a .tech domain was the hard part.
I was wrong.

What followed was a confusing adventure through nameservers, MX records, TXT verification, and more browser tabs than I’d care to admit.

Here’s what actually happened — and what I wish I knew before setting up franzdomingo.tech.

Step 1: Buying the Domain

Easy. Clicked Buy. Paid. Owned it.

“Okay cool, I’m a domain owner now.”
That confidence lasted 10 minutes.

Step 2: Deploying My Site to Vercel

Vercel made connecting the domain straightforward — until it told me to add these:

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

No problem. I updated my nameservers at my domain registrar. Boom — website live. Portfolio up.

Then came email.

Step 3: Email Hosting — Let the Chaos Begin

I wanted to set up a custom email (e.g., hello@franzdomingo.tech).
But then I learned: you can’t do that if Vercel is managing your nameservers.

Because Vercel doesn’t offer free email hosting — and it locks your DNS configuration unless you dig into it.

Tech support literally told me:
“Remove Vercel’s nameservers if you want email to work.”

So now I had to choose:

Custom email or
Easy domain + Vercel DNS integration

I picked email.

Step 4: Reconfiguring DNS (Again)

After switching back to my registrar’s default nameservers, I had to re-add all the Vercel-required DNS records manually:

A CNAME for www
A TXT for verification
Possibly A records (depending on your setup)

Then I added:

MX records for email (from Google / iCloud / Zoho / etc.)
SPF TXT records to prevent spoofing
DKIM keys for verification
And if you're lucky — DMARC policies

I used tools like:

whois.com to check if my records were live
dig to debug TXT records
Live chat support (a lot)

Step 5: It Worked (Eventually)

The DNS changes took a few hours to propagate.

Once live:

My site was still up (thanks to manual DNS entries)
My email finally worked (after verification hell)

And I finally got to send an email from hello@franzdomingo.tech.
Felt like owning a piece of the internet.

What I Learned (the Hard Way)

Vercel is great — unless you want email. Then it gets tricky.
Nameservers and DNS records are mutually exclusive: you either delegate DNS fully (like to Vercel) or manage it yourself.
Email setup needs more than just MX records — SPF, DKIM, and DMARC matter if you want deliverability.
Use DNS tools like dig, whois, or even mxtoolbox.com for sanity checks.

Final Tips

Use your registrar’s DNS if you need email.
Document your DNS config. You’ll forget it in 2 months.
Don’t panic if it doesn’t work instantly. TTL delays are real.
Verify your setup using https://mail-tester.com

“DNS isn’t hard — until you have to debug it live while on chat with tech support.”