Put it on your domain

The recipe — paste this to your AI

# Recipe — put your site on your own domain (and don't strand your SEO)

Adding the domain in Vercel is the easy half. The half everyone misses: **this site composes
absolute URLs from `NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL`** — canonical links, the sitemap, Open Graph/share
images, and JSON-LD structured data all use it. If you switch domains and don't update it,
search engines and social cards keep pointing at the old host, silently.

## Steps

1. **Vercel → your project → Settings → Domains → Add.** Add BOTH `yourdomain.com` and
   `www.yourdomain.com`; pick one as primary (Vercel redirects the other — either choice
   works, just be consistent). Follow Vercel's DNS instructions (an `A`/`ALIAS` record for the
   apex, `CNAME` for `www`); certificates are automatic.
2. **Update the env var:** in Vercel → Settings → Environment Variables, set
   `NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL=https://yourdomain.com` (your primary, no trailing slash — see
   `.env.example` for the variable's notes).
3. **Redeploy.** An env-var change alone does NOT rebuild the site (`DEPLOY.md` Gotcha 9) —
   trigger a redeploy so the new URL bakes into the canonical/OG/sitemap output.
4. **Re-verify what's actually served:**
   - `view-source:https://yourdomain.com` → the `<link rel="canonical">` and `og:url` must
     name the NEW domain.
   - `https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml` → every entry on the new domain.
   - Paste a page into a social-card debugger (X/Facebook/LinkedIn) — the preview should
     render with your brand, from the new host.
5. **If you changed domains (not just added one):** keep the old domain attached in Vercel so
   it 308-redirects to the new one — inbound links and indexed pages keep working while
   search engines re-crawl.

## Gotchas

- `GENESIS_API_ORIGIN` does NOT change — that's your API's origin, not your site's. Only
  `NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL` moves with your domain.
- The contact form, login cookies, and the `/api/v1` proxy are same-origin by design, so
  they follow the new domain automatically — nothing to reconfigure.
- Analytics: if your GA4/GTM property filters by hostname, add the new domain there too.