Configuring Amazon Route 53 as your DNS service
You can use Amazon Route 53 as the DNS service for your domain, such as example.com. When Route 53 is your DNS service, it routes internet traffic to your website by translating friendly domain names like www.example.com into numeric IP addresses, like 192.0.2.1, that computers use to connect to each other. When someone types your domain name in a browser or sends you an email, a DNS query is forwarded to Route 53, which responds with the appropriate value. For example, Route 53 might respond with the IP address for the web server for example.com.
DNS hosting vs. domain registration
This chapter covers using Route 53 for DNS hosting only. This means your domain registration stays with your current registrar, and you'll continue paying them for domain renewals. Route 53 will only manage your DNS settings and handle DNS queries for your domain.
If you want to transfer your domain registration to Route 53 as well (making Route 53 both your registrar and DNS service), see Pre-transfer checklist for domain transfers and Transferring registration for a domain to Amazon Route 53.
In this chapter, we explain how to configure Route 53 to route your internet traffic to the right places. We also explain how to migrate DNS service to Route 53 if you're currently using another DNS service, and how to use Route 53 as the DNS service for a new domain.
