Route 53 DNS with Wordpress

Setting up Premium AWS Route 53 DNS Zone for a Wordpress Website

In this post, we will discuss how to add a hosted zone and create DNS records in AWS Route 53 DNS service for a Wordpress website.

Speed is among the most critical factors in terms of SEO and website performance. While it is critical from a SEO viewpoint, it is also important for maintaining a superior user experience. This is as much true for a simple Wordpress blog as for an ecommerce site. However, one of the most overlooked aspects of speeding up a wordpress website is DNS speed. Using the regular DNS is not enough to maintain suitable Wordpress speed.  Using premium DNS speeds up DNS lookup and improves loading speed. AWS Route 53 is among the most economic premium DNS services that you can easily configure within minutes using the AWS management console and use with your website. AWS offers its services to customers in 245 countries and territories through 99 availability zones and more than 400 edge locations.

  • AWS Route 53 is Amazon’s premium DNS services. Some of its leading customers include McDonalds, Netflix and slack.  Due to its attractive pricing, global availability and superior performance AWS Route 53 is among the most preferred premium DNS providers. Here is the process to create a hosted zone on Route 53 and direct your traffic using a fast and scalable premium DNS service.
  • Create an AWS account and login to the AWS management console.
  • Search for Route 53 in the search box at the top and select and enter.
  • Click on create hosted zone.
  • In the domain name box enter your website’s domain name.
  • We have used the domain name examplesite.com in this setting.
  • You can add a description (optional) if you like for your dns zone.
  • In the type select public (default). A public hosted zone routes DNS on the internet and a private hosted zone routes traffic within an Amazon VPC.
  • Now click on create hosted zone at the bottom.
  • You will be taken to the hosted zone details. Here you can add new DNS records for your domain.
  • Once you have clicked on created hosted zone, you will see two existing records already created for your hosted zone.
  • One of them is a NS record and another SOA record.  Your hosted zone is first populated with a set of basic records that include NS and SOA.
  • There are four NS records that you will need to apply at your domain registrar’s. To do that go to your domain registrar account. For example – Godaddy.  Select the domain that you want to change the nameservers for. You will find the domains you have registered with Godaddy listed under the products tab. Click on manage DNS and then change the nameservers.
  • Enter the four DNS records provided in Route 53 hosted zone and click on apply.
  • Return to your AWS account ->Route 53 and hosted zones.
  • Now to get your DNS working, you will need to add two records including one A record and a CNAME record.
  • Click on create record and add the details. Leave the record name box blank for your main domain. In the record type select A record (A- Routes traffic to an IPv4 address and some AWS resources).
  • In the value section enter your domain ip. If you do not remember your domain IP, you can find it from your cpanel. In the cpanel go to the zone editor and select the domain you want to add records for. Click on manage and copy the IP in the A record for the domain. You will find it at the top of all records.
  • Paste the domain IP in the value box for your record in route 53 hosted zone. For routing policy select simple (default routing policy).
  • At the bottom you will see the button to click add another record. Click on it or you can save the first record before moving to the second by clicking on create records.
  • In the record name box add www and in record type add CNAME.

For both the records, the routing policy will be simple. Once done, click on create records. You will be back on your hosted zones page and there would be four records now like in the image here. Route 53 propagates very fast, so the chances of experiencing any downtime are very low. You can refresh your website to check.

To check if your DNS is propagating, go to whatsmydns.net and enter the domain name. Check out the A records and NS records to see the status of propagation.

If you want, you can also add the other records like MX records and TXT records to the hosted zone. You can go back to your cpanel to check out the other records and enter them in Route 53 hosted zones.  Keep the routing policy simple. Route 53 also offers other routing policies like latency based, geolocation based and IP based. However, for a simple Wordpress site hosted on a single server, the routing policy would remain simple.

DNS speed matters just like the other aspects of site speed. Using premium AWS Route 53 DNS will help you speed up your DNS lookups and improve page loading times. AWS Route 53 is scalable, fast, secure, cost effective and highly available. You pay for what you use only. Using the AWS management console is also easy and you can delete a hosted zone easily if you do not want to use it or want to create a new one. To delete a hosted zone, first delete the entries you have made for A and CNAME records and then click on delete zone button near the top. The hosted zone will be deleted.