Having Trouble Verifying Subdomain for Google Workspace on Shopify... anyone else?

Hey everyone, I’m experiencing a challenge and hoping for some help. I use Shopify for my domain and everything is running smoothly with Google Workspace. My email setup is functioning perfectly, but now I’m working on adding a subdomain (mail.mydomain.com) for email marketing. While Google Workspace verifies it without any issues, when I try to activate Gmail, Google indicates that it cannot verify the subdomain. I’ve followed all the instructions to the letter and added the required MX records, but I’m still getting errors. I’ve attached some screenshots to show you the steps I’ve taken. Has anyone dealt with something similar or can offer advice on what I might have overlooked? I would really appreciate any guidance you can provide.

It sounds like you might have a conflicting MX record. I ran into a similar issue last week. In my case, it was because I had an extra MX record pointing to smtp.google.com for the subdomain. You don’t need that one. Try removing it and leaving only the default Google MX records. That should help.

Thanks for the suggestion! I didn’t realize that extra record could cause the problem. I’ll go ahead and remove it and test again to see if it works.

I think I’ve encountered the same issue. Double-check the priority values on your MX records. If they’re off or don’t match Google’s documentation, you can run into verification errors. I’d suggest reviewing the exact priorities listed by Google for your setup.

Great idea. I hadn’t paid much attention to the priorities before. I’ll take a closer look and adjust them accordingly.

Another thing you can try is giving it a bit of time. DNS changes can sometimes take a while to propagate fully. I’ve seen situations where Google didn’t verify the domain right away, but after waiting 24 to 48 hours, it worked perfectly.

I hadn’t thought of that. It makes sense that DNS propagation could be the culprit. I’ll check again tomorrow and see if it updates.

One last thing: check to make sure you’re not including any prefixes like ‘www’ or other subdomains in your configuration. If you do, Google won’t be able to verify it properly. Keep the subdomain clean and simple.

I’ll double-check that. I didn’t think of using extra prefixes, but it’s a good idea to make sure everything’s straightforward.

It might be worth confirming that all your MX records are indeed pointing to the correct Google servers. Sometimes the issue can be a missed record or an incorrect entry. Review the Google Workspace setup documentation carefully to ensure everything matches up.

Thanks for the reminder. I’ll recheck the documentation to ensure that everything is in line with Google’s instructions.