Creating a public hosted zone

A public hosted zone is a container that holds information about how you want to route traffic on the internet for a specific domain, such as example.com, and its subdomains (acme.example.com, zenith.example.com). After you create a hosted zone, you create records that specify how you want to route traffic for the domain and subdomains.

Important

You can create a hosted zone only for a domain that you have permission to administer. Typically, this means that you own the domain, but you might also be developing an application for the domain registrant.

To create a public hosted zone using the Route 53 console

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Route 53 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/route53/.

2. If you're new to Route 53, choose Get started under DNS management.

   If you're already using Route 53, choose Hosted zones in the navigation pane.

3. Choose Create hosted zone.

4. In the Create Hosted Zone pane, enter the name of the domain that you want to route traffic for. You can also optionally enter a comment.

   For information about how to specify characters other than a-z, 0-9, and - (hyphen) and how to specify internationalized domain names, see DNS domain name format.

5. For Type, accept the default value of Public Hosted Zone.

6. Choose Create.

7. Create records that specify how you want to route traffic for the domain and subdomains. For more information, see Working with records.

8. To use records in the new hosted zone to route traffic for your domain, see the applicable topic:

   • If you're making Route 53 the DNS service for a domain that is registered with another domain registrar, see Making Amazon Route 53 the DNS service for an existing domain.

   • If the domain is registered with Route 53, see Adding or changing name servers and glue records for a domain.